Family Context and Caregiver Characteristics in Substantiated Child Maltreatment: A Report-Level Analysis

Background and Purpose: Child maltreatment is a major public health concern rooted in shared family characteristics and dynamics that affect all children within a household. While previous child-focused research has provided crucial insights into individual children’s maltreatment experiences, growing attention focuses on understanding how these outcomes are shaped at the family-level. This study investigates the complex relationships between family characteristics, configurations of perpetration, and family size in relation to child maltreatment outcomes across all children in a family unit.

Methods: Using FY 2018-2019 National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) data from 21 states on substantiated maltreatment reports, we analyzed report-level maltreatment outcomes as a proxy for family-level information, as each report captures the co-residing children’s shared experiences. Reports were categorized into four distinct groups based on the aggregated substantiated or indicated maltreatment allegation types across all children in a report: (1) neglect only; (2) neglect with other allegations; (3) abuse only; and (4) abuse with other allegations excluding neglect. Comprehensive descriptive analyses compared family contexts, caregiver attributes, and the interplay between family size and perpetration configuration (i.e., co-perpetration versus single perpetration and perpetrator gender) across these categorized maltreatment patterns.

Results: Of 440,754 reports with substantiated or indicated allegations included in this study, nearly half (48.7%) included only one child, 25.7% had two children, 14.4% had three children, and 11.1% included four or more children. Neglect was the most common substantiated allegation appearing in 77.1% of reports: 58.5% (n = 257,621) classified as into Neglect Only and 18.6% (n = 82,117) as Neglect with Other. Abuse was substantiated in 15.7% of reports, including 14.0% classified as Abuse Only and 1.7% as Abuse with Other. Although most reports involve multiple children, only a subset typically have substantiated allegations, and this pattern varies by maltreatment type. For example, in the Neglect and Other group with three children per report, 76.6% had substantiated allegations for all three children, 9.7% for two, and 13.7% for only one. Findings also showed distinct maltreatment patterns across perpetrator configurations (single female, single male, and male-female co-perpetrators). Neglect predominated in reports involving females and co-perpetrators, with single females showing consistent neglect rates (67-70%) regardless of family size. Single male perpetrators demonstrated notably higher abuse rates, particularly in one-child families (34.1%), with a distinctive pattern of declining in two-child households before gradually increasing with family size.

Conclusion and Implications: Our findings offer three key insights: (1) although most reports involve multiple children, only subsets have substantiated allegations, with varying patterns across maltreatment types. This warrants a family-centered approach that recognizes shared environmental influences without suggesting automatic substantiation for every children in the household; (2) maltreatment patterns differ meaningfully across family structures, number of children, and perpetrator configurations, requiring services tailored to family’s specific contexts beyond maltreatment type; (3) perpetrator configurations, particularly regarding gender and caregiving roles, vary across maltreatment types in ways that inform more effective family-centered interventions. These findings underscore the need for targeted responses addressing the complexity of child maltreatment within diverse family structures.