Demographics of abused children

• Children in the age group of birth to 1 year had the highest rate of victimization at 25.7 per 1,000 children of the same age in the national population.
• Slightly more than one-half (51.4 percent) of all child victims were girls, and 48.3 percent were boys.
• Most victims were from three races or ethnicities: White (43.5 percent), Hispanic (23.5 percent), and African American (20.9 percent).
• American Indian or Alaska Native children had the highest rates of victimization at 14.8 per 1,000 children in the population of the same race or ethnicity
• African American children had the second highest rate at 13.8 per1,000 children
  ( https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubpdfs/canstats.pdf)

How many children die from abuse and neglect?

Child fatalities are the most tragic consequence of maltreatment. In 2020, 51 states reported 1,713 fatalities. Overall, fatalities decrease with age of children. Analyses of case-level fatality data indicates the following:

• 68.0 percent (67.8%) of all child fatalities are younger than 3 years old.
• Close to one-half (46.4%) of child fatalities are younger than 1 year old and died at a rate of 23.03 per 100,000 children in the population of the same age. (3.6 times the fatality rate for 1-yearr old children).
• Boys have a higher child fatality rate than girls at 2.99 per 100,000 boys in the population, compared with 2.05 per 100,000 girls in the population.
• Nearly ninety percent (88.1%) of child fatalities are one of three races: White (38.7%), African American (34.9%), or Hispanic (14.5%).
• The rate of African American child fatalities (5.90 per 100,000 African American children) is 3.1 times greater than the rate of White child fatalities (1.90 per 100,000 White children) and 3.6 times greater than the rate of Hispanic child fatalities (1.65 per 100,000 Hispanic children).
  ( https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/cm2020.pdf )
  ( https://americanspcc.org/child-maltreatment-statistics )