Does anyone else wonder about the validity of this data, given the drop in funding to child protective services and occurrences such as those in Arizona, where thousands of child abuse cases were never investigated? That state did not investigate 6,000 cases, has a 10,000-case backlog, and another 12,000 cases whose investigation started during the state's last budget year that have not been completed. Â
The number of U.S. children victimized by abuse and neglect has dropped for the sixth straight year, but child fatalities linked to maltreatment increased by nearly 4 percent, according to the latest federal data.
According to the annual report released Tuesday by the Department of Health and Human Services, the estimated number of victimized children in the 2012 fiscal year was 686,000. That's down from 688,000 in 2011 and from 723,000 in 2007.
But the report found that fatalities attributable to child abuse and neglect increased from 1,580 in 2011 to 1,640 in 2012.
HHS said further research would be needed to determine whether this represented a real increase in child fatalities or reflected improvements in how states investigate and report these cases to determine which can be attributed to abuse.
Two years ago, a Government Accountability Office report asserted that states used flawed methods to tally and analyze the deaths of children who have been maltreated. It said annual estimates of such deaths were likely too low.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/data-child-abuse-slightly-fatalities-21249894
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