Department of Pediatrics, Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, New Hyde Park, NY, United States.
Department of Pediatrics, Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, New Hyde Park, NY, United States; Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Hempstead, NY, United States.
Child Abuse Negl. 2021 Jun;116(Pt 2):104719. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104719. Epub 2020 Sep 9.
School closures and other public health responses have decreased the extent that children interact with mandated reporters and other professionals trained to detect child maltreatment.
To assess associations between the pandemic public health response and the number of allegations of child abuse or neglect.
This study analyzed monthly data from New York City of the number of child maltreatment allegations, stratified by reporter type (e.g., mandated reporter, education personnel, healthcare personnel), as well as the number of Child Protective Services (CPS) investigations warranting child welfare preventative services. SARIMA models were trained using data from January 2015 to February 2020 to predict expected values for March, April, and May 2020. Observed values were compared against predicted values at an alpha of .05.
Substantially fewer allegations of child maltreatment were reported than expected in March (-28.8 %, deviation: 1848, 95 % CI: [1272, 2423]), April (-51.5 %, deviation: 2976, 95 % CI: [2382, 3570]), and May 2020 (-46.0 %, deviation: 2959, 95 % CI: [2347, 3571]). Significant decreases in child maltreatment reporting were also noted for all reporter subtypes examined for March, April, and May 2020. Fewer CPS investigations warranted preventative services than expected in March 2020 (-43.5 %, deviation: 303, 95 % CI: [132, 475]).
Precipitous drops in child maltreatment reporting and child welfare interventions coincided with social distancing policies designed to mitigate COVID-19 transmission. In light of these findings, educators and healthcare providers must be especially vigilant when engaging online with children and their families for signs of child abuse and/or neglect.
学校关闭和其他公共卫生措施减少了儿童与强制报告人和其他受过儿童虐待检测培训的专业人员互动的程度。
评估大流行公共卫生应对措施与虐待和忽视儿童的举报数量之间的关系。
本研究分析了纽约市每月的儿童虐待举报数量，按报告人类型（如强制报告人、教育人员、医疗保健人员）进行分层，并对需要儿童保护服务（CPS）调查以提供儿童福利预防服务的数量进行了分层。使用 2015 年 1 月至 2020 年 2 月的数据对 SARIMA 模型进行了训练，以预测 2020 年 3 月、4 月和 5 月的预期值。将观察值与预测值进行比较，置信水平为 0.05。
与预期相比，2020 年 3 月（-28.8%，偏差：1848，95%CI：[1272，2423]）、4 月（-51.5%，偏差：2976，95%CI：[2382，3570]）和 5 月报告的儿童虐待举报数量明显减少。对所有报告人类型的检查也发现，2020 年 3 月、4 月和 5 月儿童虐待报告数量显著减少。与预期相比，2020 年 3 月需要预防服务的 CPS 调查数量减少（-43.5%，偏差：303，95%CI：[132，475]）。
儿童虐待报告和儿童福利干预措施的急剧下降与旨在减轻 COVID-19 传播的社交距离政策同时发生。鉴于这些发现，教育工作者和医疗保健提供者在与儿童及其家庭在线互动时，必须特别警惕虐待和/或忽视儿童的迹象。
