Children Exposed to Abuse in Youth-Serving Organizations: Results From National Sample Surveys.

IMPORTANCE

Protecting children in youth-serving organizations is a national concern.

OBJECTIVE

To provide clinicians, policymakers, and parents with estimates of children's exposure to abuse in youth-serving organizations.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Telephone survey data from the 3 National Surveys of Children's Exposure to Violence (2008, 2011, and 2014) were combined to create a sample of 13,052 children and youths aged 0 to 17 years. The survey participants included youths aged 10 to 17 years and caregivers of children aged 0 to 9 years.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

Items from the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire.

RESULTS

In the combined sample of 13 052 children and youths aged 0 to 17 years, the rate of abuse by persons in youth-serving organizations was 0.4% (95% CI, 0.2-0.7) for the past year and 0.8% (95% CI, 0.5-1.1) over the lifetime. Most of the maltreatment (63.2%) was verbal abuse and only 6.4% was any form of sexual violence or assault.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

Abuse in youth-serving organizations was a relatively rare form of abuse, dwarfed by abuse by family members and other adults.