PCA America’s President and CEO Dr. Melissa Merrick has published an opinion piece titled “Child abuse deaths are preventable” in the Chicago Sun Times with Dr. Norell Rosado, Interim Division Head of Child Abuse Pediatrics at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago:
Child abuse and neglect are major public health crises — they can devastate a person, a family, a community, and society as a whole. We’ve seen this in our own city. The recent, devastating murder of an 8-year-old girl in Uptown, allegedly by her mother, shows the effects of child abuse and neglect impact Chicagoans every day.
Now is the time to reframe the association between poverty and child abuse as a public responsibility. It is a solvable, preventable problem, not a further source of shame and pressure on disadvantaged families who have faced repeated social inequities.
The nation’s children deserve a brighter, more just future. We owe it to them, and their families, to help prevent abuse and neglect. We must sow the seeds for every child to grow, flourish, and reach their full health and life potential.
