Citation

Lindberg DM, Runyan DK. Pediatrics 2016; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect, Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado desmond.runyan@childrenscolorado.org.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, American Academy of Pediatrics)

DOI

10.1542/peds.2016-1190

PMID

27338700

Abstract

Although child maltreatment has existed through human history, widespread, sustained attention to the problem of child physical abuse has only a 54-year history, after the 1962 publication of The Battered Child Syndrome by Kempe and colleagues.1 Since then, all US states and many foreign countries have passed laws and developed systems to respond to reports of child abuse. Medical recognition of this phenomenon is reflected in an expanding medical literature; child abuse pediatrics has become a certified pediatric subspecialty (2005) with accredited fellowships (2007) and a board certification exam (2009). The field has evolved from a field of a few professionals identifying a few disturbing cases to one that has grown to be more systematic and driven by careful epidemiology and scientific study of both diagnosis and outcome. Berger et al’s2 “Validation of the Pittsburgh Infant Brain Injury Score for abusive head trauma” in this issue of Pediatrics adds an important step in this evolution of science by validating the importance of sentinel findings or “red flags” for abusive head trauma and a clinical prediction rule (CPR) that can guide clinicians in decisions about looking for occult intracranial hemorrhage when the history is not accurately presented and the risks are high.

That child maltreatment was only widely recognized as a problem in the 1960s is proof of the potential …

Language: en