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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Unrelated adults a risk to kids

A study released today affirms what social workers in the field long have suspected: Young children living with unrelated adults are at a much greater risk of death from an inflicted injury.

The study from the University of Missouri found that children living with unrelated adults are nearly 50 times more likely to die from an inflicted injury than children living with two biological parents.

“It’s not uncommon for single mothers to be working or attending to other needs of the household when the child is injured,” said Patricia Schnitzer, a lead author on the study and assistant professor of nursing. “Often, she has left the child in the care of her boyfriend or the child’s father, who then inflicts injury.”

The scenario has played itself out time and again in the Inland Northwest. Last month, a 30-year-old Spokane man was sentenced to 35 years in prison for beating to death his girl-friend’s young daughter.

Since 1994, at least 16 infants and toddlers in Eastern Washington and North Idaho have died of abuse at the hands of caregivers including baby sitters, relatives and mothers and fathers, according to a 2004 examination by The Spokesman Review.

Experts in child abuse and neglect often refer to the men as “unbonded males” – boyfriends or baby sitters who are not related to the child in their care.

For years, the conditions surrounding the deaths of many of the children – often referred to as shaken-baby syndrome – masked the true number of deaths. Many alleged perpetrators have maintained that the injuries were accidental.

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated that 1,500 children across the country died of abuse or neglect.

The study, which will be published in the November issue of Pediatrics, is one of the first attempts to quantify the increased risk to children living with unrelated adults. The study reviewed the deaths of all children under age 5 in Missouri from 1992 to 1999.

Those injuries often resulted from shaking or striking the child, which accounted for nearly three-fourths of the deaths in the study.

However, the study found that children in single-parent households – without unrelated adults in the home – were not at an increased risk.

“Single-parent households have gotten a bad rap in terms of the risk for child abuse and neglect,” Schnitzer said. “This encourages people to look beyond just single parents to see who else might be living with that parent.”

Schnitzer cautioned that the study’s relatively small sample of 149 deaths did not provide enough data about what she considers a national problem. However, Schnitzer said she was unaware of any national program tracking the number of deaths among children living with unrelated adults.

“If we had national data that matched what we used, you could get a sense of the number of children who might be at risk,” Schnitzer said.