Reporting of Child Maltreatment During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Southern State in the United States.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

COVID-19-related stay-at-home orders (SAHOs) created an immediate physical barrier between children and professionals such as pediatricians and teachers, who are often first to identify and report signs of child maltreatment. Our objective was to determine how the SAHO in a southern state was associated with reports of child maltreatment and whether this association was modified by sociodemographic characteristics.

Methods

We linked data on reports of child maltreatment from a southern state in the United States from October 1, 2018, through September 30, 2020, to data from the US Census Bureau to obtain data on county-level socioeconomic characteristics. We fit a segmented regression model to evaluate changes in reports before and after the SAHO, March 20, 2020.

SUBMITTER: Thome JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11556571 | biostudies-literature | 2024 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature