Black Children Suspected of Experiencing Child Abuse at Higher Rates

Black children are suspected to have experienced child abuse at higher rates than children of other racial and ethnic backgrounds, according to a study published online Dec. 18 in JAMA Network Open.

Fereshteh Salimi-Jazi, M.D., from the Stanford University School of Medicine in California, and colleagues describe racial and ethnic disproportionalities in suspicion for child abuse (SCA) in pediatric patients admitted after traumatic injury using data from a retrospective multicenter cross-sectional study performed between 2022 and 2024.

Of the weighted total of 634,309 pediatric patients with complete data included in the study, 13,579 (21.2 percent Black, 16.9 percent Hispanic, and 41.8 percent White) had injuries attributable to SCA and 620,730 patients did not (13.9 percent Black, 17.5 percent Hispanic, and 48.1 percent White). The researchers found that the racial and ethnic distribution of the non-SCA subgroup was similar to that of the 2010 U.S. Census, while Black and Hispanic patients were overrepresented in the SCA subgroup compared with the Census (odds ratios, 1.75 and 1.11, respectively) and White patients were underrepresented. Black race remained an independent risk factor associated with SCA after controlling for socioeconomic factors and hospital characteristics (odds ratio, 1.10), while Hispanic race was a protective factor (odds ratio, 0.71). Black patients had a 26.5 and 40.1 percent longer length of stay for mild-to-moderate and serious injuries, respectively, compared with White patients in the SCA subgroup.

“Developing a standardized screening tool may help eliminate unconscious bias in diagnosing nonaccidental trauma among different races and ethnicities,” the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text

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