Estimating the Social Costs of Child Abuse in Residential Care for Children with Disabilities Using the Japanese Survey on the Interactions of Adverse and Positive Childhood Experiences toward Adulthood

Naruhisa Nakane; Ichiro Wada

doi:10.3390/ijerph192416476

Estimating the Social Costs of Child Abuse in Residential Care for Children with Disabilities Using the Japanese Survey on the Interactions of Adverse and Positive Childhood Experiences toward Adulthood

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Dec 8;19(24):16476. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192416476.

Authors

Naruhisa Nakane¹, Ichiro Wada²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Public Policy, Faculty of Welfare Society, Kyoto Prefectural University, 1-5, Shimogamohangi-cyo, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8522, Japan.
² Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Faculty of International Liberal Arts, Dokkyo University, 1-1, Gakuen-cho, Soka-shi 340-0042, Japan.

Abstract

We sought to calculate the extra social costs resulting from child abuse in residential care facilities (RCFs) for children with disabilities (CWD) in Japan. We distributed a survey to 260 residential facilities for CWD in 2020 and obtained responses from 91 facilities. Among the children placed in these facilities, our estimates by four different criteria determined that 23-67% were affected by child abuse. We also estimated extra costs for each of the four criteria, which we estimated to average USD 647.7 million. This study is meaningful in that there are no existing official statistics or research findings on the extra costs of residential care due to child abuse in Japan.

Keywords: Japan; child abuse; child maltreatment; residential care for children with disabilities; social costs of child abuse.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Child
Child Abuse*
Disabled Children*
East Asian People
Humans
Residential Facilities
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

This research was funded by JSPS KAKENHI (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), grant numbers JP19H01602 and JP22H00936.