Factors Associated With First Occurrences of Child Maltreatment in Military Families.
Never-deployed status linked to much higher odds of emotional abuse in military families
Factors Associated With First Occurrences of Child Maltreatment in Military Families.
IMPORTANCE: Information regarding risk factors among service member families for different child maltreatment types is needed to improve prevention efforts.
To identify factors associated with first occurrences of 4 child maltreatment types and examine child age-related changes in risk for each type among active duty service member families.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This population-based retrospective cohort study used data from the Child Maltreatment in Military Families Life Course Study on active duty service member families with a first occurrence of child maltreatment in fiscal years 2009 through 2018 and a representative sample of active duty families without child maltreatment incidents.
never-deployed families had much higher odds of emotional abuse
The study included 618 101 active duty service member families (28 684 [4.64%] with a first occurrence of child maltreatment and 589 417 [95.36%] without child maltreatment incidents), consisting of 1 070 510 family-months (family-months); the total weighted sample was 65 142 809 family-months (59 031 293 male service member family-months [90.62%]; mean [SD] age, 32.74 [6.97] years).
Crude rates of child maltreatment were highest for child neglect (22.16 per 100 000 family-months) followed by physical abuse (10.97 per 100 000 family-months), emotional abuse (4.23 per 100 000 family-months), and sexual abuse (2.66 per 100 000 family-months).
In this cohort study, families with female service members, never-deployed service members, 3 or more children, and young parents had higher risk of child maltreatment.
Dynamic prevention approaches appear to be needed to address evolving risk factors across the family life course.