Has the relationship between community poverty and child maltreatment report rates become stronger or weaker over time?

BACKGROUND: Poverty is among the most powerful predictors of child maltreatment risk and reporting. To date, however, there have been no studies assessing the stability of this relationship over time. OBJECTIVE: To examine whether the county-level relationship between child poverty rates and child maltreatment report (CMR) rates changed over time in the United States in 2009-2018, overall and across of child age, sex, race/ethnicity, and maltreatment type. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: U.S. Counties in 2009-2018. METHODS: Linear multilevel models estimated this relationship and its longitudinal change, while controlling for potential confounding variables. RESULTS: We found that the county-level relationship between child poverty rates and CMR rates had intensified almost linearly from 2009 to 2018. Per one-percentage-point increase in child poverty rates, CMR rates significantly increased by 1.26 per 1000 children in 2009 and by 1.74 per 1000 children in 2018, indicating an almost 40 % increase in the poverty-CMR relationship. This increasing trend was also found within all subgroups of child age and sex. This trend was found among White and Black children, but not among Latino children. This trend was strong among neglect reports, weaker among physical abuse reports, and not found among sexual abuse reports. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight the continued, perhaps increasing importance of poverty as a predictor of CMR. To the degree that our findings can be replicated, they could be interpreted as supporting an increased emphasis on reducing child maltreatment incidents and reports through poverty amelioration efforts and the provision of material family supports.

Community food insecurity predicts child maltreatment report rates across Illinois zip codes, 2011-2018.

PURPOSE: We examined how longitudinal changes and inter-community differences of food insecurity rates were associated with child maltreatment report (CMR) rates at the zip code level. We assessed these associations overall, by urbanicity, and within subgroups of age, sex, and maltreatment type. METHODS: We used Illinois statewide zip code-level data from 2011 to 2018. We measured CMR rates based on Illinois child protective services records and food insecurity rates from Feeding America's Map the Meal Gap. We conducted spatial linear modeling to account for spatial dependence with controls for various socioeconomic, demographic, care burden, and instability conditions of communities. RESULTS: Both longitudinal changes and inter-community differences of food insecurity rates were significantly associated with increased CMR rates overall and within all subgroups. These associations were significant among all large urban, small urban, and rural areas, while longitudinal changes of food insecurity rates had significantly stronger associations among small urban areas compared with other areas. CONCLUSIONS: Communities experiencing higher food insecurity had higher CMR rates. Increases in food insecurity over time were associated with increases in CMR rates. These associations were reproduced within subgroups of child age, sex, maltreatment type, and urbanicity. Attention and collaborative efforts are warranted for high food insecure communities.

Longitudinal Understanding of Child Maltreatment Report Risks.

BACKGROUND: Child maltreatment reports (CMR) are both common and strongly associated with various negative outcomes. OBJECTIVE: To examine CMR risks by child age, early childhood context, current/cumulative economic status (welfare receipt), race, and other risk factors with a longitudinal dataset. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The CAN sample included 2,111 children having a CMR ≤ age 3, suggestive of a harmful early childhood context. The AFDC sample included 1,923 children having AFDC but no CMR ≤ age 3, suggestive of early childhood protective factors despite poverty. METHODS: We estimated the CMR likelihood at each age from 1-17 years based on various risk factors while following up children from 1995-2009. RESULTS: During follow-up, CMR likelihoods were substantially higher for the CAN sample than for the AFDC sample. The age-CMR relationship was strongly negative for the CAN sample (OR = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.86-0.88). This relationship was weaker for the AFDC sample (OR = 0.92, 0.89-0.95) and became non-significant for children who exited welfare. Current welfare receipt remained a strong predictor of CMR likelihoods for both CAN (OR = 2.32, 1.98-2.71) and AFDC (OR = 2.08, 1.61-2.68) samples. Prior welfare receipt moderately increased CMR likelihoods among those not currently on welfare. Controlling for other risk factors, White children had the highest likelihood of CMR. Other child and parent level vulnerabilities also increased CMR risk over time. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the importance of longitudinal analytic approaches and the utility of cross-sector administrative data in improving our ability to understand and predict CMRs over time.

Duration in Poverty-Related Programs and Number of Child Maltreatment Reports.

This study examined the relationship of a family's duration in poverty-related programs (i.e., Aid to Families with Dependent Children/Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Medicaid) to the subject child's number of maltreatment reports while considering race and baseline neighborhood poverty. Children from a large Midwestern metropolitan area were followed through a linked cross-sector administrative database from birth to age 15. Generalized multilevel models were employed to account for the multilevel structure of the data (i.e., nesting of families within neighborhoods). The data showed a unique and significant contribution of duration in poverty-related programs to the number of maltreatment reports. The predicted number of maltreatment reports increased by between 2.5 and 3.7 times, as duration in poverty-related programs increased from 0 to 9 years. This relationship was consistent between Whites and non-Whites (over 98% Black), but non-Whites showed a significantly lower number of total maltreatment reports while controlling for duration in poverty-related programs. We were unable to find a significant association between child maltreatment reports and baseline neighborhood poverty.

The assessment of efficacy of porcine reproductive respiratory syndrome virus inactivated vaccine based on the viral quantity and inactivation methods.

BACKGROUND: There have been many efforts to develop efficient vaccines for the control of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV). Although inactivated PRRSV vaccines are preferred for their safety, they are weak at inducing humoral immune responses and controlling field PRRSV infection, especially when heterologous viruses are involved. RESULTS: In all groups, the sample to positive (S/P) ratio of IDEXX ELISA and the virus neutralization (VN) titer remained negative until challenge. While viremia did not reduce in the vaccinated groups, the IDEXX-ELISA-specific immunoglobulin G increased more rapidly and to significantly greater levels 7 days after the challenge in all the vaccinated groups compared to the non-vaccinated groups (p < 0.05). VN titer was significantly different in the 106 PFU/mL PRRSV vaccine-inoculated and binary ethylenimine (BEI)-inactivated groups 22 days after challenge (p < 0.05). Consequently, the inactivated vaccines tested in this study provided weak memory responses with sequential challenge without any obvious active immune responses in the vaccinated pigs. CONCLUSIONS: The inactivated vaccine failed to show the humoral immunity, but it showed different immune response after the challenge compared to mock group. Although the 106 PFU/mL-vaccinated and BEI-inactivated groups showed significantly greater VN titers 22 days after challenge, all the groups were already negative for viremia.