UNITED STATES
Boston Globe
By Brigid Schulte | WASHINGTON POST SEPTEMBER 13, 2013
WASHINGTON — In the first major study of child abuse and neglect in 20 years, researchers with the National Academy of Sciences reported Thursday that the damaging consequences of abuse can not only reshape a child’s brain, but can last a lifetime.
Untreated, the effects of child abuse and neglect, the researchers found, can profoundly influence a child’s physical and mental health, their ability to control emotions and impulses, their achievement in school, and the relationships they form as children and as adults.
The researchers recommend an ‘‘immediate, coordinated’’ national strategy to better understand, treat, and prevent child abuse and neglect, noting that each year, abuse and neglect costs an estimated $80 billion in both the direct costs of hospitalization, law enforcement, and child welfare, and the indirect costs of special education, juvenile and adult criminal justice costs, adult homelessness, and lost work productivity.
‘‘Child abuse and neglect is a serious public health problem which requires immediate, urgent attention,’’ said Anne Petersen, a professor at the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan who chaired the research committee for the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council of the National Academies. ‘‘The consequences can last into adulthood with significant costs to the individual, to families, and to society.’’
The report, produced at the request of the US Department of Health and Human Services, found that while rates of physical and sexual child abuse have declined in the past 20 years, rates of emotional and psychological abuse, the kind that can produce the most serious long-lasting effects, have increased. Rates of neglect have held fairly steady. Researchers say they don’t know why.
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