CHICAGO — Getting punched by your brother or sister is sometimes a painful rite of passage, but many U.S. kids also experience other types of assaults, mistreatment and abuse, a big government-funded survey found.
The consequences can include social and emotional troubles, even when the perpetrator is a sibling, other research has found.
While most incidents reported didn’t cause injuries and many didn’t involve weapons, the results show that youths younger than age 18 are exposed to violence in extensive ways, “which justifies continued monitoring and prevention efforts,” the researchers said.
The results are from 2013-14 phone interviews with 4,000 randomly selected kids or their parents, asked about recent and lifetime experiences. Results were published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics; there was little change from a previous survey in 2011.
Among the key findings:
• For all ages grouped together, 37 percent experienced any physical assault in the previous year.
• About 22 percent were by siblings and 16 percent were by peers.
• 14 percent of girls aged 14 to 17 said they’d been sexually assaulted within the past year, and for 4 percent the attack was a rape or rape attempt.
• 15 percent of kids surveyed experienced maltreatment by a parent or other caregiver within the previous year, including 5 percent who experienced physical abuse.
• 9 percent of all physical assaults resulted in injuries. The Associated Press
