The Australian Child Maltreatment Study: Findings on the national prevalence of child maltreatment, and associated mental disorders and health risk behaviours

Profile

Ben Mathews is a Professor in the School of Law at Queensland University of Technology, a founding member of QUT’s Australian Centre for Health Law Research, and an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health.  He was a Professorial Fellow to the Australian Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and has served on two World Health Organization Guideline Development Groups on Health Sector Responses to Child Maltreatment.  He is an internationally renowned researcher on child maltreatment, and his work has influenced socio-legal reforms in Australia and overseas, especially in relation to improving methods to prevent, identify, and respond to child sexual abuse, and child protection systems generally.

Abstract

Professor Mathews is the Lead Investigator of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS). The ACMS has conducted Australia’s first survey of the national prevalence of all five forms of child maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and exposure to domestic violence), their associated mental disorders and health risk behaviours through life, and the associated burden of disease. Child maltreatment is both a major public health challenge and a children’s rights concern, and most of its manifestations constitute important forms of violence against children.  The ACMS has generated evidence with multiple reform implications for law, policy and practice, and can inform future epidemiological studies.