Description
The objective of this cross-sectional analysis was to examine associations between being a prior victim of maltreatment and being a current (2017) victim of maltreatment among children in California, adjusting for child-specific variables. Additionally, this study analyzed the associations of each type of abuse, individually adjusting for the child variables used. The current study utilized the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System Child File (NCANDS) version 2 for fiscal year 2017 dataset with permission from the Children’s Bureau. The study analysis included California children aged 1-17, and only cases with known ages and sex within this age range were included. The final sample included 413,653 reports of abuse. IBM’s SPSS statistics version 26 was used to analyze data. Statistical analyses included descriptive frequencies, chi-square crosstabulations, and logistic regressions. There were 58,714 substantiated (or indicated) victims of child abuse and maltreatment out of the 413,653 cases in California in 2017. Analysis showed a disproportionately large amount of abuse reports in the Hispanic and Latino, Asian and Black communities. In the regression with the types of abuse combined, prior victims were 1.21 times more likely (adjusted OR=1.21, 95% CI = 1.19-1.24), p<0.001) than other children who were not prior victims to be current victims who had reports made in 2017. However, when the regression was run for each type of abuse individually, this was not always the case. Prior victims were 0.98 times as likely as children who had not been prior victims to suffer physical abuse, 0.78 times as likely to suffer sexual abuse, 1.26 times as likely to suffer neglect, 1.69 times more likely to suffer medical neglect, and 1.19 times more likely to suffer psychological or emotional abuse, than children who were not prior victims. Therefore, after a child suffers from one type of abuse, he or she has a greater chance of suffering from neglect and psychological or emotional abuse again in the future than any of the other types of maltreatment. A greater focus on preventing all types of abuse, particularly among children who were prior victims in California, is needed.
