Pediatric emergency department visits due to child abuse and neglect following COVID-19 public health emergency declaration in the Southeastern United States.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The ongoing worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has heightened several risk factors  for child abuse and neglect (CAN). We study whether COVID-19 and the public health response to it affected CAN-related pediatric emergency department (ED) visits in the southeastern United States (US).

Methods

We performed a retrospective chart review on medical records of ED visits from a level I pediatric hospital system serving one of the largest metropolitan areas in the southeastern US from January through June 2018-2020. We used multivariate Poisson regression and linear regression to compare professionally identified CAN-related ED visits before and after a COVID-19 public health emergency declaration in 2020, relative to trends over the same period in 2018 and 2019.

Results

SUBMITTER: Bullinger LR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8435405 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature