Citation

Travis WJ, Collins PS, McCarthy RJ, Rabenhorst MM, Milner JS. Mil. Med. 2014; 179(11): 1244-1249.

Affiliation

Center for the Study of Family Violence and Sexual Assault, 125 Presidents Boulevard, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Association of Military Surgeons of the United States)

DOI

10.7205/MILMED-D-13-00544

PMID

25373048

Abstract

From 2002 until 2007, the United States Air Force (USAF) revised the process of determining whether incidents of suspected family maltreatment met the criteria for maltreatment. In this study, all reported child maltreatment and partner abuse incidents in the USAF from January 2008 to July 2011 were examined to determine the extent to which characteristics of victims, offenders, and incidents affected whether incidents were determined to have met criteria for maltreatment. For both child maltreatment and partner abuse, alleged incidents in which offenders used substances and more severe incidents were more likely to have met maltreatment criteria than alleged incidents that did not involve offender substance use and less severe incidents. However, characteristics of the persons involved (e.g., age, gender, military status) were generally unassociated with an incident meeting criteria. Consistent with the goals of the criteria revisions, these results suggest that the current USAF criteria are associated with incident characteristics and not with demographic characteristics of the persons involved in the incident.

Language: en