Study Says Abuse Numbers Larger

Included in the latest Journal of the American Medical Association is a study suggesting the death toll from child abuse in the United States may be as much as three times greater than previously believed.

An estimated 9,467 children 10 and younger were killed by abuse between 1985 and 1994, compared to an earlier government estimate of 2,973, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina.

Overall, they estimated that 800 children and infants are killed by abuse. A death is classified as such if the perpetrator is identified as a caregiver and the victim shows signs of prior physical abuse.

The researchers based the new estimate on a close analysis of death records for children in North Carolina over a decade beginning in 1984. Out of the 220 deaths the researchers classified as child abuse deaths, state health records counted only 68, largely because of clerical errors translating death certificate data into vital statistics.

Extrapolating from North Carolina to the nation as a whole is reasonable, the researchers said, because all states use the same coding system for classifying deaths.