health

Most child abuse occurs at the hands of someone the child knows,
usually a parent, other relative, caregiver, or neighbor. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about twelve children
in every 1,000 in the United States were reported to child protective
services as victims of child maltreatment in 2006, the last year for which
data are available. Of these 900,000 children, 64 percent were victims of
neglect, 17 percent were physically abused, 9 percent were sexually
abused, and 7 percent were emotionally abused. Girls are slightly more
likely to be abused than boys; 52 percent of children reported as victims
of abuse were girls.
Some other studies have reported higher rates of emotional abuse—
as high as 75 percent—when emotional abuse is considered as a factor in
other forms of abuse or neglect. Of adults who abuse children, the
majority are women—58 percent.
Infants are the most likely age group to suffer abuse; the CDC reported
that twenty-four out of every 1,000 children below the age of twelve
months were abused in 2006, compared to fourteen per 1,000 for children
between one and three years of age, thirteen per 1,000 for children between
three and seven, eleven per 1,000 for children between eight and fifteen,
and six per 1,000 for teenagers sixteen to seventeen years of age.
Race and ethnicity are also factors. In 2006, the rate of child abuse
among African Americans was twenty per 1,000 children; for Native
Americans, sixteen per 1,000; and for children of mixed race, fifteen per
1,000.
Child abuse and neglect can lead to death. The CDC reported that
more than 1,500 children of all ages died in the United States in 2006
as the direct result of abuse and neglect. Seventy-eight percent of these
deaths occurred in children below the age of four years.