Child abuse, covering physical, sexual and emotional abuse or neglect, is conservatively estimated to affect 13,8% of a Danish child cohort. Abuse is known to have negative consequences across the life-span. In childhood, neurobiological development and risk of injury are negatively affected. In adulthood, risks of ischemic heart disease, alcoholism, depression and suicide are increased. Aiming to improve preventive measures, this PhD attempts to increase knowledge on indicators of physical and sexual child reported to the police.

The project has three parts:

1. Do a systematic review on known indicators from the international literature
2. Build a model on indicators from data in Danish public registries and test family patterns of health care use and child well-being as indicators of abuse before it is reported to the police
3. Replicate findings from the Danish registries on Swedish registry-based data