Editorial: How Badly Do We Undercount Chronic Maltreatment, and How Much Should Clinicians Care?

Child maltreatment is both common1-4 and costly5,6 for children, communities, and society. Recent estimates suggest that roughly 1 in 8 American children will ever experience confirmed maltreatment4 and that the average lifetime cost per maltreatment victim is in excess of $210,000.5 This is the furthest thing from news for those who work in the child welfare system. But for those of us —whether adolescent and child psychiatrists, demographers, criminologists, or economists—who have an interest in marginalized children but are less “in the weeds” of the child welfare system, both the cost and the scope of maltreatment in the United States is jarring.
Source: Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Editorial Source Type: research