The facts about child abuse are startling and sobering. Following is a summary of recent findings on child abuse and neglect reported by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

• Child protective service agencies received 2,806,000 referrals for investigation of possible abuse or neglect in 1998.

  • Of that number, about one-third were "screened out" and the remaining two-thirds were further investigated.

  • More than one-half of all of the referrals came from professionals, and just under one-half came from family and community members.

  • About 29 percent of the investigated cases resulted in a finding of child maltreatment, but more than half resulted in a finding that maltreatment was not substantiated.

• The 1998 rate of victimization of children was 12.9 per 1,000 children, down from 13.9 per 1,000 in 1997.

  • The highest rate of victimization was in the zero-to-three-year-old age group, and the rates declined as the children got older.

  • The victimization rate means that in 1998 there were about 903,000 substantiated victims of child abuse or neglect in the United States.

  • More than 50 percent of these victims suffered neglect, about 24 percent suffered physical abuse, and about 12 percent were sexually abused.

• Over 60 percent of the perpetrators of abuse or neglect were female.

• More than 87 percent of the victims were mistreated by one or both parents.

• In cases of sexual abuse, almost 56 percent of the children were victimized by males.

• About 620,000 child victims received post-investigative support services in the United States in 1998. This number includes children who were the subject of both substantiated and unsubstantiated reports.

• About 144,000 victims of abuse were placed in foster care in 1998.

• About 547,000 children were in foster care in 1999, which indicates a 35 percent increase since 1990.

  • About 117,000 of those children were waiting for permanent adoptive families.

• Parents who abuse drugs or alcohol are more likely to engage in abusive behavior. It has been estimated that as many as 80 percent of the families who become child protective services cases have problems with drugs or alcohol.

• In 1998, 88 percent of reporting states named substance abuse as one of the top two challenges faced by families reported to protective services, with poverty being the other.