Child abuse tied to housing crisis? New study finds links
(Read article summary)A new study in the journal Pediatrics found that when an area's foreclosure rate increased, so did the rate of children admitted to hospitals with abuse-related injuries. Is the housing crisis to blame for a rise in severe child abuse?
Here’s another reason for policy makers grappling with the country’s economic woes to keep a focus on kids:
As the US housing crisis worsened during the 2000s, severe child abuse increased, according to a new study published online this week in the journal Pediatrics.
The study, whose lead author was Dr. Joanne N. Wood of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, found that for every percentage increase in a metropolitan area’s foreclosure rate, the rate of hospital admissions for children who had been beaten increased by 6.5 percent. And for every 1 percent increase in the 90-day mortgage delinquency rate, child abuse admissions increased 3 percent.
