Struggling to Stem the Tide of Child Maltreatment

Many JAMA readers understand that child maltreatment is a pervasive public health and costly societal problem with devastating consequences to the long-term physical health, mental health, and well-being of surviors. But few have witnessed what we see on a regular basis: the lost futures of chronically neglected children who have never experienced the stability and safety of a nurturing family; the mental health challenges of adolescents who have been sexually abused and assaulted for years by their caregivers; the permanent neurologic injuries of infants who have survived abusive head trauma; and the battered bodies of murdered toddlers in our local morgues. As primary care pediatricians, hospitalists, and child abuse experts, these neglected, abused, beaten, and battered children are our patients, and it has been an uphill battle to stem the tide.
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research