With Parent Away at War, Child Abuse Increases

Incidents of child abuse and neglect rise significantly when the Army's deployment of one spouse to war leaves the other worried at home, a study finds. An Army-funded report found female spouses four times more likely than males to mistreat their children; the Army has beefed up family-support services to help deal with the issue.

Overall, maltreatment—which can have long-term health consequences for victims—by males and females rose by 40% when one spouse was in combat, the LA Times reports. The most common form of mistreatment was neglect, ranging from lack of supervision to abandonment; emotional and physical abuse, a province of male soldiers, was found to decline during deployments. (More medical research stories.)