|
 
MU researcher Patricia Schnitzer says children living with
unrelated adults have a higher risk of death from an inflicted
injury.
|
Injury
Deaths Higher for Children Living With Unrelated Adults
By Christian Basi
According to a new study from the University of Missouri-Columbia,
the risk of death from an inflicted injury increases nearly 50-fold
for young children living in households with adults unrelated
to them compared to children living with two biological parents.
In a study published in the November issue
of Pediatrics,
Patricia Schnitzer, assistant professor of nursing
at MU, and Bernard Ewigman, professor of Family Medicine at the
University of Chicago,
used information from Missouri's
Child Fatality Review Program, a system mandated by the state
to ensure that all child deaths are properly reviewed, to identify
all children 4-years-old and younger who died of an injury inflicted
by a parent or other adult caregiver over an 8-year period. Examples
of inflicted injuries include shaking or striking the child, which
accounted for 73 percent of the deaths in the study, as well as
suffocation, burns and drowning.
Missouri's Child Fatality Program reviews
and collects information about every child death that occurs in
the state, including information about who lives in the child's
house and their relationship to the child. Information collected
on injury deaths includes details about the injury event, including
information about who inflicted the injury if applicable.
Additional results show that children from
single-parent households are not at increased risk for
inflicted injury death as long as no other adults live in the
home. Schnitzer said this clarifies the common misconception that
children in single-parent households are more likely to experience
child abuse and neglect.
“Because of the detailed information
collected by the Child Fatality Review Program, we were able to
classify households based on the relationship of each adult to
the deceased child,” Schnitzer said. “Consequently,
we were able to distinguish between households with only single
parents and those with a single parent and one or more adults,
related or unrelated, to the child. Other studies and national
statistics have not reported or recorded this level of detail
on households with children.”
The study also summarizes information about
the perpetrators and reports that most perpetrators were male.
Only 35 percent were the child's biological father. Most perpetrators
lived with the child when the injury was inflicted. Eighty percent
of households with an unrelated adult resident consisted of the
single mother and her boyfriend. The boyfriend was the perpetrator
in 74 percent of these households. Schnitzer said that parents
of young children face tremendous stress and these stressors are
often compounded for single parents.
“It's not uncommon for single mothers
to be working or attending to other needs of the household when
the child is injured,” Schnitzer said. “Often, she
has left the child in the care of her boyfriend or the child's
father who then inflicts injury.”
Educational programs offered to both male
and female caregivers, as well as other resources such as home
visits by nurses and subsidized childcare could benefit high risk
families and help reduce the chance of inflicted injury. Recently,
the National Women's Law Center
found that Missouri ranks last in subsidizing child care to low-income
families, Schnitzer said.
Archives
| Comments | Home SUBSCRIPTIONS
Subscribe
| Change Your
Address | Unsubscribe
Copyright © 2007 — Curators of the University of Missouri
DMCA and other copyright information.
All rights reserved.
An equal opportunity/ADA institution.
Published by the Mizzou Alumni Association
Questions? Comments? E-mail comments@mizzoualumni.org
Last Update:
March 12, 2007
|
