Prevent Child Abuse Iowa - THE NUMBER OF ABUSED CHILDREN IN IOWA DECLINES IN 2006

The Iowa Department of Human Services determined that 13,529 children suffered abuse in 2007. This is the second year in a row that the abuse numbers have fallen – a decline of 10 percent from 2005, when DHS found that 15,060 children were abused (see Chart 1).

This is the only time in the last decade that abuse numbers have fallen in consecutive years. This decline follows a lengthy period when Iowa rates climbed to the highest levels ever. This climb began in 2000, when DHS officials found that 10,822 children were abused. Thereafter, the numbers climbed substantially, reaching an all-time high of 15,060 abused children in 2005.

Please note that PCA Iowa uses the “duplicate” abused children numbers from the Iowa DHS. These numbers count each time a particular child is abused. DHS also releases figures for “unique” abused children. These numbers count a child only once as abused, even if the child suffers abuse on multiple occasions during the year. In 2007, there were 12,237 “unique” abused children. PCA Iowa uses duplicate numbers because it is only in this decade that DHS has reported unique numbers. Before this decade, DHS figures were only duplicate ones.

The Types of Child Abuse

Table 1 lists the number and types of abuse that DHS found in 2007. Most child abuse involved cases of denial of critical care, commonly called neglect. In 2007, DHS determined that there were 10,741 instances of this type of abuse, which represented 73.7 percent of all child abuse. DHS also found 1,751 cases of physical injury (12.0 percent of all abuse) and 672 cases of sexual abuse (4.6 percent of all abuse).

Iowa is one of very few states with a specific category of child abuse where medical officials find the presence of illegal drugs in a child’s body because of a parent’s or other caretaker’s actions or inactions. A total of 1,185 abuse cases (8.0 percent of all abuse) involved this type of abuse in 2007.

In 2001, the Iowa Legislature was the first in the nation to add a new category of child abuse to cover instances where a child’s parent or other caretaker was involved in manufacturing a dangerous drug in a child’s presence. In 2007, DHS found that 56 children were present when a parent or other caretaker manufactured methamphetamine – a figure that represented 0.4 percent of all confirmed child abuse.

In 2005, the Legislature added a new category of abuse to include cases where a child’s parent or caretaker is knowingly cohabiting with a sex offender who is not the caretaker’s spouse or the child’s parent or guardian. DHS found 165 cases of this new type of abuse in 2007 (1.1 percent of all abuse).

Table 2 details the figures for the major types of Iowa child abuse from 2002 to 2007. This table shows a wide variation in the trends of different forms of child abuse over the last six years. The most common type of child abuse, denial of critical care (see Inset) has declined in each of the last four years but is still three percent higher than in the year 2002. By contrast, the number of confirmed cases of physical and sexual abuse declined by more than one-third from 2002 to 2007. In 2007, there were 996 fewer confirmed cases of physical injury (a 36.3 percent decline) and 455 fewer instances of sexual abuse (a 40.4 percent decline) than in 2002. These two categories of child abuse represented 16.8 percent of all abuse in 2007, down from 25.0 percent of all abuse in 2002.

Iowa’s two specific categories related to parental use or manufacturing of illegal drugs have gone different ways over the last decade. While instances where authorities confirmed the presence of an illegal drug in a child’s body due to a caretaker’s action or inaction declined in 2007 by 308 cases, the 2007 figure (1,173) was still 38.7 percent higher than in 2002. By contrast, the 56 instances in 2007 where officials discovered a child present when a parent or other caretaker manufactured a dangerous drug represented a decline of more than 80 percent from 2002.

In 2007, 50.6 percent of child abuse victims were less than six years old. This continues an overall increase over the last six years in the proportion of abuse victims who are under six. The year 2007 is the first year over this period where more than half of all victims were under six years old.

The rate of child abuse varied widely among Iowa’s counties in 2007, with rates much higher in some counties than in others (see Table 4). For instance, Wapello County’s rate of abuse (36.18 children per 1,000) was more than five times the rate for Sioux County (6.48 children per 1,000).

These differences in the rates of child abuse are substantial every year, and there is no single explanation for these variations. Many of the counties with higher rates of child abuse also have higher rates of child poverty, unemployment, single-parent households, and lower median income. This is not consistently true, however, with much of the difference remaining unexplained.

In some of the previous years, there have been noteworthy geographical features in the differing rates of child abuse. For instance, in 2005, nine of the twelve counties with the highest rates of abuse were located in southeastern Iowa. This year’s distribution of counties with high or low rates of abuse (Chart 2) shows little geographic clustering, with differing rates of abuse throughout Iowa.

The decline in child abuse, which averaged ten percent from 2005 to 2007, was not uniform across the state. The number of abused children was lower in 58 counties in 2007 than in 2005 but higher in 37 counties. Four counties had the same number of abused children in 2007 as in 2005.

The decrease or increase in abuse numbers from 2005 to 2007 was substantial in many Iowa counties. Table 5 lists the counties in Iowa where the rate of abuse was at least one-third lower or higher in 2007 than in 2005. There were 17 counties (shaded in blue) where the rate of abuse was one-third lower in 2007 than in 2005. In seven of the counties, the decline was more than half, and, in all but one of them (Clarke), the rate of abuse dropped in both 2006 and 2007. Of those 17 counties, ten were in the highest quintile (top 20) in abuse rates in 2005.

By contrast, the number of abused children in ten counties (shaded in yellow) was at least one-third higher in 2007 than in 2005. In seven of those counties, the rate was at least 50 percent higher.

The recent two-year decline in DHS child abuse figures in 2006 and 2007 is substantial and unique in Iowa’s recent history of child abuse reporting and assessment. In addressing the first decline in 2006, DHS Director Kevin Concannon expressed caution over predicting further downturns in child abuse. Director Concannon noted that many of the indicators associated with higher risks of child abuse remained high, including child poverty rates, lack of health insurance, illegal drug usage, and single parenting. He predicted that, until some of these risk factors declined, child abuse in Iowa is likely to remain high.

Child abuse in Iowa has now declined for a second year. Whether this drop signals a long-term trend is, likewise, uncertain. There is always a question with any change in abuse whether it is affected by some change in agency practice or community attitudes or a signal of actual change in the “real” rate of abuse. As to the former possible explanation, the two-year decline in abuse numbers may be associated with recent changes in agency practice, particularly one involving more centralized intake of child abuse reports.

The two-year decline in abuse numbers may also, however, be associated with a “real” decline in abuse, signaling some success in Iowa’s efforts to reduce child abuse. In recent years, Iowa has undertaken several efforts to expand its support for families, with the result that many more families – particularly those with younger children – are receiving instruction and support. These expanded efforts may have had some success in strengthening families and, thereby, reducing abuse.

One relevant DHS practice change worth noting is the Community Partnerships for Protecting Children (CPPC). This reform brings together diverse organizations and community members to help keep children safe from abuse and neglect. These organizations and individuals work to prevent abuse before it occurs, respond quickly and effectively if it does, and reduce reoccurrence of abuse through individualized family interventions.

Prevent Child Abuse Iowa has been an important partner with DHS in supporting this important statewide initiative. This has included taking on two major initiatives in 2007:

To Report Child Abuse
Call: 1-800-362-2178

CHILD ABUSE IN IOWA
FALLS AGAIN IN 2007

The Types of Child Abuse

	To Report Child Abuse Call: 1-800-362-2178
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To Report Child Abuse Call: 1-800-362-2178

CHILD ABUSE IN IOWA FALLS AGAIN IN 2007

The Types of Child Abuse

To Report Child Abuse
Call: 1-800-362-2178

CHILD ABUSE IN IOWA
FALLS AGAIN IN 2007