Child Abuse: Long-Term Effects and Public Health Impact

Child abuse can present itself in various forms throughout the country, however the one major defining part of child abuse it that cannot be stopped or cured with medication, exercise, or nutrition. Unlike typical medical conditions, child abuse is passed through learned behaviors and can have effects on family members, friends, employees. According to the Child Help Foundation, child abuse is defined “when a parent or caregiver, whether through action or failing to act, causes injury, death, emotional harm or risk of serious harm to a child...including neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation and emotional abuse” (“The Issue of Child Abuse”, 2016). Child abuse has detrimental effects on a person’s later life as an adult, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and obesity. This is a public health problem because these factors can be passed down through genetics; for example, children who have obese parents are more likely to be obese themselves. Noted by Woolf, injuries such as child abuse can lead to poor self-control, limited social skills, lack of perseverance, resilience, and antisocial behavior (Woolf 2013). Abused children grow up no longer in the

Children who experience abuse and neglect are at a high risk for illicit drug and alcohol abuse as an adult (Herrenkohl, 2013). Substance and alcohol abuse can not only create further health problems for the victim, but it can also affect pregnancies in abused victims. The harm on a fetus caused by maternal smoking, alcohol use, or illicit drug use can range from developmental delays to infant drug dependency. In a NIDA-funded study, it was found that child rape victims, compared to those who were not raped, were more than three times as likely to have used marijuana, six times more likely to have used cocaine, and more than ten times as likely to have used drugs other than cocaine such as heroin (Swan,