Child Maltreatment in Canada: What we know and how we can do better.

Child maltreatment is a major public health problem that is associated with adverse health outcomes not only in childhood and adolescence but also throughout the lifespan. Child maltreatment refers to physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, physical neglect, and exposure to intimate partner violence (EIPV). It is estimated that every year, one billion children aged 2-17 years old experience physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Less is known about the prevalence and characteristics of child maltreatment in Canada, and higher quality and more detailed epidemiological data are needed to inform prevention and policy efforts.

This presentation will discuss a recent innovative survey of child maltreatment in Canada. The presentation will:

1) share knowledge of the size and scope of child maltreatment in Canada using newly collected and the most comprehensive Canadian child maltreatment data to date,

2) provide preliminary data on other adverse and understudied experiences among children within the Canadian context including online sexual victimisation, peer victimisation, sibling victimisation, and spanking,

3) outline current evidence of protective factors associated with better outcomes following child maltreatment, and

4) identify important next steps for advancing the child maltreatment field to improve knowledge, protect children, and promote well-being and resilience.

Given similarities between Canada and Australia, and common challenges faced by all working in the child maltreatment field, this presentation is of interest to researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in diverse fields including law, child protection, health, and education.

Speaker

Professor Tracie O. Afifi, PhD

Tracie Afifi is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Childhood Adversity and Resilience, and a Professor in the College of Community and Global Health with a cross appointment in the Department Psychiatry at the University of Manitoba. Additionally, she is the Director of the Childhood Adversity and Resilience (CARe) Research team, a co-Director of the CARe Research Training Platform, a Research Scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba, and the Editor-in-Chief of Child Abuse & Neglect.

Professor Afifi’s primary research interests are in the areas of child maltreatment and mental health with a focus on resilience and prevention. Her work has provided insight into the size and scope of child maltreatment in Canada, advanced knowledge on resilience and protective factors following child maltreatment, impacted shifts on societal norms that perpetuate spanking to reduce the risk of child maltreatment, and informed policy and practice. She has published over 250 peer-reviewed journal publications and has over 250 presentations at national and international conferences. Her work has been cited over 25,000 times with an h-index of 74 and an i10-index of 180. To date, Prof. Afifi has been awarded over $55 million in research funding as Principal or Co-Investigator.

Prof. Afifi is an inducted college member of the Royal Society of Canada (alumni), the 2018 recipient of the Royal-Mach-Gaensslen Prize for Mental Health Research, the 2019 recipient of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Gold Leaf Award, the 2020 recipient of the Alexander Leighton Award in psychiatric epidemiology, named Canada’s 2021 top 100 most powerful women by the WXN Diversity Council of Canada, the 2023 recipient of the University of Manitoba Distinguished Alumni Award for Academic Innovation, and in 2025 was elected into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.