Social Policy Report: The Biological Embedding of Child Abuse and Neglect Implications for Policy and Practice

Each year within the US alone over 770,000 children are victimized by abuse and neglect (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2010), and this figure is likely to underestimate the extent of the problem. Researchers have long recognized that maltreatment has adverse effects on children’s mental health and academic achievement. Studies of adults show that adverse childhood experiences like maltreatment increase risk for chronic diseases of aging, including Type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease. What the field does not fully understand is why maltreatment has such pervasive ef- fects. Studies on the neuroscience of maltreatment have begun to offer some clues. Victims of maltreatment differ from non-victims with respect to brain structure and function, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-(HPA) axis and autonomic nervous system function, immune function, and epigenetic markers. 

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