Trip Answers

Question answered:30/05/06 Warning! this question is over two years old.

In our answer we have defined child abuse as including physical, emotional and sexual abuse or neglect of children.

We searched the National Library for Health Specialist Library for Child Health, the TRIP and Medline databases and the websites for Save the Children and the NSPCC but found little information to answer this question.

A report published by the Health Development Agency entitled “Injuries in Children aged 0-14 years and inequalities” reported the following findings:

“There is some evidence that children from minority groups in Britain have different injury experiences from the majority group. However, findings relating to the scale and types of injury suffered by children in different cultural groups are mixed and, as with other aspects of inequality, the influence of culture may be mediated by age, gender, social and other factors.

In a study examining the links between ethnicity and injury, Alwash and McCarthy used census data to calculate injury rates for Caribbean, Asian, British and other children attending a London hospital. Here, the ethnic group was related to the father’s country of birth, or mother’s where the parents were not living together. Rates and types of injury suffered by children from different ethnic groups were similar. Other factors, including distance from hospital, social class and housing-related factors, were more important predictors of hospital attendance.

Other studies have pointed to increased risk for children from minority ethnic backgrounds, but in many cases there has been no adjustment for social factors so it is difficult to know whether ethnicity exerts any independent effect or is simply a marker for more general deprivation. For example, an analysis of national mortality data revealed that compared to injury death rates overall, the death rate for Pakistani children was 2.55 times that of all children. It is not clear why these differences occurred.

In a case–control study where ethnicity was ascertained by children’s names, there was no increased risk of A&E
attendance for injury among those children defined as being from minority ethnic groups. Here more than two thirds of all children, in both case and control groups, were from deprived backgrounds.

For road injuries there may be more evidence of an association between ethnic group and injury risk. In a case–
control study of pedestrian injuries, noted that cases were more likely to be from non-white families. Further analysis revealed that non-white parents tended to have lower scores on a measure examining risk perception compared to white parents.

Other studies have indicated that young children of Asian descent had an increased risk of injury on the road, but
that among children aged 10 years and over there was no increased risk.” [1]

Given the lack of information in the published literature on types and prevalence of child abuse in south asian families living in Britain, the NH Q & A Service would recommend contacting an organization such as the NSPCC for further assistance with this enquiry. The NSPCC offers two points of contact:

“Reference and enquiry services
Our reference facilities are open to external practitioners and researchers by appointment. We also answer telephone, email and letter enquiries and conduct literature searches. In addition, the Library publishes a selection of reading lists on child protection-related topics. These can be a very helpful starting point for students and researchers in search of background information. (http://www.nspcc.org.uk/html/home/informationresources/libraryservices.htm); (http://www.nspcc.org.uk/html/home/contactus.htm#professionals)

The NSPCC website also offers a link to the Asian Child Protection Helpline to Support Professional Carers at: (http://www.nspcc.org.uk/home/informationresources/Asianchildprotectionhelplinetosupportprofessionalcarers.htm).

References
1. Health Development Agency. Injuries in children aged 0-14 years old and inequalities. 2005. (http://www.publichealth.nice.org.uk/download.aspx?o=504653).

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