Editorial: How Badly Do We Undercount Chronic Maltreatment, and How Much Should Clinicians Care?

Abstract

Child maltreatment is both common^1-4 and costly^5,6 for children, communities, and society. Recent estimates suggest that roughly 1 in 8 American children will experience confirmed maltreatment,⁴ and the average lifetime cost per maltreatment victim is in excess of $210,000.⁵ This is the farthest thing from news for those who work in the child welfare system. But for those of us-whether adolescent and child psychiatrists, demographers, criminologists, or economists-who have an interest in marginalized children but are less "in the weeds" of the child welfare system, both the cost and the scope of maltreatment in the United States is jarring.