Relationships between Child Maltreatment Occurrence Levels and the Characteristics of Community Built Environment

This study explored the relationships between child maltreatment occurrence levels and the characteristics of community built environment, which is composed of housing and neighborhood environments; the housing environment was measured through rates of abandoned housing, rates of apartments, and rates of housing lacking adequate space, and the neighborhood environment was composed of the green area per person, the number of cultural infrastructure, and the access to public transportation. The analyses were implemented on both total child maltreatment cases and emergent cases. Main findings based on multilevel negative binomial regression model are as follows. First, when all others are equal, the communities with higher rates of apartments or less cultural infrastructure of access to public transportation were more likely to have higher number of total child maltreatment cases. Second, when all others are equal, the communities with higher rates of housing lacking adequate space or more green area, or less cultural infrastructure or access to public transportation were more likely to have higher number of emergent child maltreatment cases. Based on findings, future research directions and practical implications were suggested.