School Closure and Child Maltreatment During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

ABSTRACT: It is not known how school closure affected child maltreatment. We conducted a retrospective cohort, linear mixed-models study of 133 counties (comprising 8,582,479 children) in Virginia between 2018 and 2021. Exposure was the opening of schools at least 2 days a week. Outcomes were referrals and incidence of child maltreatment reported to the Department of Social Services. In 2020-2021, there were descriptively more referrals (in-person: 50.9 per 10,000 [95% CI: 47.9, 54.0]; virtual: 45.8 per 10,000 [95% CI: 40.7, 50.9]) and incidence (in-person: 3.7 per 10,000 [95% CI: 3.3, 4.2]; virtual: 2.9 per 10,000 [95% CI: 2.3, 3.5]) of child maltreatment in counties with in-person schooling, though these differences did not reach statistical significance. The referral rate variations (between pand

SUBMITTER: Wolf ER 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11369664 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature