Recently, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a
government-funded group of independent experts, addressed a
comprehensive review of the available data on ways to detect
maltreatment of children. In a sobering acknowledgment, the
USPSTF believes that there is not much that can be done to
detect cases of child maltreatment that aren’t glaringly
obvious. There’s simply not enough research to make a case for
advising physicians to take specific actions during well-child
visits, for example, to help determine which children are at
risk. In 2010, nearly 700,000 children were victims of abuse and
neglect; 1,537 of them died. [From: Child Abuse: Why It’s So
Hard to Determine Who’s at Risk, January 23, 2013 ] The report
continued: The researchers at OHSU analyzed 11 studies that
evaluated the effectiveness of child abuse and neglect
prevention programs or interventions that took place in clinics
— such as meetings with a social worker, for example. They gave
parents questionnaires that assessed such risk