Child Deaths In the U.S.

Child Deaths In the U.S.

Who Are the Perpetrators?

Parents—acting alone or with another parent or individual—were responsible for 78 percent of child abuse or neglect fatalities. More than one-quarter (27 percent) of fatalities were perpetrated by the mother acting alone, 16.8 percent were perpetrated by the father acting alone, and 20.1 percent were perpetrated by the mother and father acting together. Nonparents (including kin and child care providers, among others) were responsible for 16.7 percent of child fatalities, and child fatalities with unknown perpetrator relationship data accounted for 5.3 percent of the total.

How Bad Is It?

Fatal child abuse may involve repeated abuse over a period of time, or it may involve a single, impulsive incident (e.g., drowning, suffocating, shaking a baby). In cases of fatal neglect, the child’s death does not result from anything the caregiver does; rather, it results from a caregiver’s failure to act. The neglect may be chronic (e.g., extended malnourishment) or acute (e.g., an infant who drowns after being left unsupervised in the bathtub).

74.6 percent of children who died from child maltreatment suffered neglect either alone or in combination with another maltreatment type, and 44.2 percent of children who died suffered physical abuse either alone or in combination with other maltreatment. Medical neglect either alone or in combination with another maltreatment type was reported in 5.7 percent of fatalities.

Summary

While the exact number of children affected is uncertain (reporting is erratic), child fatalities due to abuse or neglect remain a serious problem in the United States. Fatalities due to child maltreatment disproportionately affect young children and most often are caused by one or both of the child’s parents.