Methodological considerations in defining child maltreatment

Abstract

Braillon, Bewley and Dubois [1] rightly stress the impor-tance of the deleterious effects of secondhand smoke onchildren’s physical health.Uniform definitions of child maltreatment and neglectare lacking. However, definitions describing physicalmaltreatment as the intentional use of physical force againsta child that results in or has the potential to result inphysical injury are broadly accepted by child protectionresearchers and practitioners [2, 3]. The behaviour groupedwithin this definition—like hitting, kicking, punching orbeating—possibly shares comparable causes and conse-quences. This assumption is endorsed by the substantialresearch on risk factors of physical maltreatment [4].Although we would restrain from defining secondhandsmoke as physical maltreatment, regularly exposing a childto secondhand smoke can be defined as a failure to providethe basic need of a healthy environment. This failure oftencoincides with other neglectful behaviour like takingchildren out till late at night, deficits in nutrition or con-sumption of alcohol during pregnancy. Such patterns areregularly referred to hospital child protection teams or otherchild protection agencies. Research on the epidemiology ofchild maltreatment identifies neglect as the most commonform of maltreatment with enormous costs for public health[3, 5, 6].