Re: Suicide

[rbarth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rick Barth)]

Dear Jill:  I would be very surprised if there is such a refined finding--although
this work certainly could be done.  In the Sabotta and Davis study in WA they did
show that subsequen child mortality rates for abused and neglected children (at
least those reported as such) are substantially higher than for the general
public--they did not control for income and did not break these down by reason for
death.  

One of the problems in looking for a link between abuse and other outcomes  is
that we often don't know whether or not our services mitigate those
risks/relationships.  

Foster care appears to do so for some groups.  In a study that I did with Deborah
Blackwell--published in Children and Youth Services Review in 1998-- we looked at
during and after foster care and compared them to the general population.  We
created a category called "violent ends" which included homicides, suicides and
injuries undetermined.  We found some evidence that children formerly in foster
care had a higher likelihood of experiencing a violent end than chidlren currently
in foster care (24.2 vs. 16.6 per 100,000 children with confidence intervals
barely overlapping) and strong evidence that these rates were higher than in the
general population.  As for your original question, we did not have enough
suicides to study that independently.  

Linking child abuse and foster care and mortality data should be high on our
research agenda--we should have an answer for your question. This is achieveable
and important.

Rick

Richard P. Barth, Ph.D.
Frank A Daniels Professor and
Chair of the Doctoral Program
School of Social Work
301 Pittsboro Rd
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3550
(v) 919 962 6516
(f)        962 1486

-- Begin original message --

From: "Jill E. Korbin, Ph.D." <jek7@po.cwru.edu>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 11:01:51 -0500
Subject: Suicide
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers   <CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
Reply-To: CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu

For an Institute of Medicine Study, does anyone have published, preferably
peer-reviewed studies on the relationship between child maltreatment and
later suicide? Thanks very much.
Jill E. Korbin, Ph.D., Professor
Department of Anthropology
Director, Childhood Studies Program
Co-Director, Schubert Center for Child Development
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7125
(216)368-2278  FAX (216)368-5334



-- End original message --