Children Exposed to Abuse in Youth-Serving Organizations Results From National Sample Surveys
Date
2016
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Publisher
JAMA Pediatrics
Abstract
IMPORTANCE Protecting children in youth-serving organizations is a national concern.
OBJECTIVE To provide clinicians, policymakers, and parents with estimates of children’s
exposure to abuse in youth-serving organizations.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Telephone survey data from the 3 National Surveys of
Children's Exposure to Violence (2008, 2011, and 2014) were combined to create a sample
of 13 052 children and youths aged 0 to 17 years. The survey participants included youths
aged 10 to 17 years and caregivers of children aged 0 to 9 years.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Items from the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire.
RESULTS In the combined sample of 13 052 children and youths aged 0 to 17 years, the rate of
abuse by persons in youth-serving organizations was 0.4% (95% CI, 0.2-0.7) for the past year
and 0.8% (95% CI, 0.5-1.1) over the lifetime. Most of the maltreatment (63.2%) was verbal
abuse and only 6.4% was any form of sexual violence or assault.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Abuse in youth-serving organizations was a relatively rare
form of abuse, dwarfed by abuse by family members and other adults
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Keywords
child sexual abuse, youth serving institutions, survey, research, statistics
Citation
Shattuck, A., Finkelhor, D., Turner, H., & Hamby, S. (2016). Children exposed to abuse in youth-serving organizations: Results from national sample surveys. JAMA Pediatrics, 170(2), e154493.