From administrative data to action: Why Ecuador needs an economic burden assessment on child maltreatment

Child maltreatment is a major public health problem with lasting health and socioeconomic consequences, yet economic-burden evidence from Latin America remains scarce. Using March 2026 administrative records from Ecuador's Ministry of Human Development, we annualized projected governmental expenditure across three Special Protection Services modalities, institutional care, foster care, and family support, serving 3,588 registered children. The base projection was approximately US dollars (USD) 25.4 million per year (about USD 7,087 per registered user). This figure captures institutional programme expenditure only and is not a national economic-burden estimate of child maltreatment, because services address multiple protection needs and exclude health, education, justice, family, and productivity costs, as well as children outside the formal system. We argue that linked administrative data across protection, health, and education sectors, together with nationally representative prevalence measurement, are required to estimate the economic burden of child maltreatment in Ecuador and to inform evidence-based policy.