Parents' use of extreme physical violence is associated with elevated high-sensitivity C-reactive protein in children

Children who grow in settings where parenting is harsh tend to develop a response tendency that may give rise to a chronic pro-inflammatory state. Thus, we aimed to identify if experiencing abuse triggers an increase in the child high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) in a population birth cohort, Generation XXI.

At cohort participants age of 7 years, information on parents' disciplinary practices was collected by trained interviewers using the Conflict Tactics Scale Parent-Child version. Venous blood samples were obtained after overnight fast and hs-CRP was quantified.

Of 4175 participants, 44.0% of children reported low frequency of physical violence, 50.1% reported frequent but not severe physical violence, 5.3% reported frequent and severe physical violence, and 0.6% children reported parental extreme physical violence. Higher levels of hs-CRP were observed among children who reported the highest grade of violence severity (58.3%). After adjustment for child's sex, age and parental education, the increasing grade of violence severity increased the odds of higher hs-CRP levels.

No significant increase in the levels of hs-CRP was found in children exposed to less severe violence. However that does not mean that those forms of violence have no impact on health in the long-term period. Also, the cross-sectional nature of the study prevents us from concluding the directionality of the effects, although we provided theoretical arguments for the proposed pathway.

Children physically abused by their parent(s) present heightened inflammation levels. Thus, our results show that stressful events may impact inflammatory processes even at very early ages.