In the largest study to examine the impact of the recession on child abuse, researchers at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s (CHOP) PolicyLab  found a strong relationship between the rate of child physical abuse and local mortgage foreclosures.

Study links child abuse to home foreclosures:

The researchers found just under a 1 percent increase in the number of general physical abuse cases reported at 38 pediatric hospitals every year between 2000 and 2009 and a more than 3 percent rise in the number of traumatic brain injuries seen in babies.

These increased rates seemed to directly correlate with the rate of mortgage foreclosures in a community, Dr. Joanne Wood of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and colleagues reported in the journal Pediatrics. There might be something uniquely stressful about losing a home that can lead to child abuse, they suggested.

The housing crisis, and ramifications therefrom, is something I deal with daily. A problem we’re all still mired in with no end in sight.

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Jeff Cormier

Dad, husband, dog lover, law, write at DigitalDeconstruction.com and other online destinations, forever immature. It's the me that I let you know.

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