An assessment of the extent of child maltreatment using administrative databases

This study examined the extent of violence toward children and factors associated with child maltreatment in Florida using a cohort of children (N=499,330) who were adjudged to be victims of maltreatment between July 1, 1996, and June 30, 2003. To assess the extent of maltreatment, five indicators were proposed and examined. Multivariate analyses found that prior referral, having more than one type of maltreatment during an initial incident, and caregiver absence best predicted the recurrence of maltreatment. Caregivers' alcohol and substance use were strong predictors of neglect and threatened harm but not of abuse. Finally, multilevel analyses found that older, nonminority girls with histories of prior referrals were significantly (psuedo-zs>2.00) more likely to experience high degrees of incident severity. Caregivers' substance use, excluding alcohol, also was significantly linked to incident severity. Implications of the findings are discussed.