Improving the measurement and surveillance of child abuse in Queensland

对虐待儿童流行率的估计表明，10%-20%的儿童受到影响，社区每年的经济成本约为50亿美元，并造成广泛的健康和社会后果。尽管有这些巨大的成本，但对儿童虐待风险因素和流行率的研究一直受到验证不足的统计数据的阻碍。使用常规医院数据识别虐待儿童案件提供了一个有效的全国标准化数据来源，通过对相互关联的健康和儿童保护数据进行例行监测和审计，提高儿童保护部门应对措施的精确度。数据的改进将为识别、干预和预防战略提供信息。

Estimates of the prevalence of child abuse suggest 10-20% of children are affected, with financial costs to the community around $5 billion annually, and extensive health and social consequences. Despite these enormous costs, research into risk factors and prevalence of child abuse has been hampered by poorly validated statistics. The use of routine hospital data for the identification of child abuse cases offers an efficient nationally standardised data source to improve the precision of child protection departmental responses through routine monitoring and audits of linked health and child protection data. Improvement of data will inform identification, intervention and prevention strategies.