About 1 in 7 children experienced child abuse and neglect last year.

Child abuse is deadly. In 2019, state agencies identified an estimated 1,840 children who died as a result of abuse and neglect — an average of five children a day. However, studies also indicate significant undercounting of child maltreatment fatalities by some state agencies by 50% or more.

Children younger than one year old are the most vulnerable to maltreatment, accounting for 45.4%, or almost half of child fatalities from abuse in 2019. In addition, 70.3% of all child fatalities are younger than 3 years old.

Rates of child abuse and neglect are 5 times higher for children in families with low socio-economic status compared to children in families with higher socio-economic status.

An estimated 678,000 children (unique incidents) were victims of abuse and neglect in 2018, the most recent year for which there is national data. That’s about 1% of kids in a given year. However, this data may be incomplete, and the actual number of children abused is likely underreported.

In 2015, the estimated lifetime economic burden of child abuse and neglect was $428 billion.