At-a-glance - The Child Maltreatment Surveillance Indicator Framework

Abstract

The federal health portfolio has conducted surveillance on child maltreatment as a public health issue since the 1990s. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is now releasing the Child Maltreatment Indicator Framework, to take its place alongside other PHAC frameworks, such as the Suicide Surveillance Indicator Framework. Based on a scoping review of existing reviews and meta-analyses, this Framework, along with the online interactive data tool, presents child maltreatment outcome indicators and risk and protective factors at the individual, family, community and societal levels, disaggregated by sex, age and other sociodemographic variables. This Framework will function as a valuable resource pertaining to an issue that affects at least one in three Canadian adults.

Highlights

• The Child Maltreatment Surveillance Indicator Framework complements other indicator frameworks released by the Public Health Agency of Canada and presents available data on child maltreatment outcomes and risk and protective factors at the individual, family, community and societal level.

• One-third (34.1%) of the Canadian population aged 15 years and older have experienced at least one type of childhood maltreatment.

• Physical abuse was experienced most often (27.4%), followed by exposure to intimate partner violence (10.6%) and sexual abuse (8.1%).

• Factors such as parental mental illness, substance use and past experience of family violence can put children at higher risk of child maltreatment.

Introduction

Child maltreatment is a public health issue, causing both immediate and longterm physical and mental health effects.¹ Surveillance data are key to policy and program efforts to prevent and address child maltreatment. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is responsible for national surveillance of child maltreatment, including physical abuse, exposure to intimate partner violence, neglect, emotional maltreatment and sexual abuse.² PHAC currently collects data about child maltreatment from administrative data from child welfare agencies, proxy informant surveys and self-report surveys.

The Child Maltreatment Surveillance Indicator Framework (CMSIF) gathers available data on child maltreatment outcomes as well as risk and protective factors at the individual, family, community and societal levels to support research and policy development. The CMSIF, which is being released in this issue of Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada, serves as a complement to other indicator frameworks released by PHAC. These include the Suicide Surveillance Indicators (SSI), the Canadian Chronic Disease Indicators (CCDI), the Positive Mental Health Surveillance Indicator Framework (PMHSIF) and the Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour and Sleep (PASS) Indicator Framework.

Methods

The CMSIF was developed using a scoping review method.³ Article searches prioritized systematic reviews, meta-analyses and literature reviews that examined risk and protective factors related to any type of child maltreatment. References from retrieved article reviews were reviewed for additional citations. Relevant articles published in English between 2004 and 2016 and reports from public health organizations (e.g. the World Health Organization) were consulted. An initial list of approximately 45 to 50 indicators was reduced through consultations with child maltreatment surveillance experts as well as with the Family Violence Initiative member departments to verify that the final list of indicators was relevant and actionable within a public health approach.

Results

Data from the 2014 General Social Survey (GSS) indicate that more than one-third (34.1%) of the population aged 15 years and older have experienced at least one of the following types of childhood maltreatment: physical or sexual abuse by an adult and/or exposure to violence by parents or guardians (Table 1). Of the three types of childhood maltreatment, physical abuse was experienced most often (27.4%), followed by exposure to intimate partner violence (10.6%) and sexual abuse (8.1%).

Table 1. CHILD MALTREATMENT SURVEILLANCE INDICATOR FRAMEWORK QUICK STATS, CANADA, 2019 EDITION.

Because of the familial context in which most child maltreatment occurs, risk and protective factors focused on parental and/or family characteristics rather than child characteristics. Factors such as parental mental illness, substance abuse and past experience of family violence can put children at higher risk of child maltreatment.

Conclusion

Childhood experiences are a key social determinant of health.⁴ The CMSIF provides available evidence about contexts and risk and protective factors to help target strategies to prevent and address child maltreatment.

The CMSIF is an evergreen document; it will be reviewed periodically and updated as new data become available. An online interactive tool on the Government of Canada’s Public Health InfoBase will provide breakdowns for the indicators by sex, age, province/territory, immigrant status.

The data gaps identified in the framework, particularly those at the community and societal level, are being addressed through active data development using surveys and administrative data.

Conflicts of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Authors’ contributions and statement

AC, SQ, GW, MS and WH were involved in the design and/or conceptualization of the work, as well as the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of the data. FB, WH and TL were involved in the interpretation of the data, as well as drafting and revising the paper.

The content and views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government of Canada.