Socioeconomic correlates of rates of child maltreatment in small communities.

This study expands the research on neighborhood effects and child maltreatment by examining the structural conditions, including religion and nationality, in small towns in Israel. The results are compared with those in inner-city and suburban neighborhoods in Western countries. Five community structural variables were statistically correlated with investigated cases of child maltreatment: adults' unemployment rate, rate of new immigrants, rate of children in single-parent families, population gain or loss, and the community's location in relation to a central city. A multivariate regression analysis of these variables explained 44% of the variance.