A longitudinal analysis of the spatial spread of police-investigated physical child abuse

Abstract

Background Research has shown that problematic behaviors, such as violence and drug use, may spread through shared physical space and social norms, lending rise to the notion of contagion theories of human behavior.

Objective This study examines whether physical child abuse spreads across time and space in a pattern reflective of a contagion model.

Participants and Setting This study uses 15 years of data from a large U.S. city police department. Data points are geo-located police-investigated physical child abuse incidents that occurred from 2001 to 2015.

Methods Police department data are combined with U.S. Census estimates of the number of child residents in each of the Census Tract comprising the study site to derive annual rates of police-investigated physical child abuse cases per 1000 children residing in each Census tract. A panel data spatial regression model is used to analyze the association between this dependent variable, the rate of police-investigated physical child abuse cases in surrounding Census tracts, and time. The analysis statistically controls for multiple covariates commonly associated with Census tract-level estimates of child maltreatment, specifically household median income, residential instability, racial composition, population density, and the concentration of child residents.

Results The rate of physical child abuse in a Census tract is positively associated with the rate of physical child abuse in the surrounding Census tracts, net of the covariates and the effect of time (β = 0.461, p < .001).

Conclusion This finding provides preliminary evidence that physical child abuse, like some other problematic human behaviors, may spread spatially.