A scoping review of child physical abuse sociodemographic risk factors in community and population studies conducted in the United States.

The present study is designed to provide a scoping review of community-and population-based studies conducted in the United States that describes the relationship between caretaker and child sociodemographic factors and the occurrence of child physical abuse (CPA). The study goals are to provide information on the scope of the CPA sociodemographic risk factor literature, determine the limitations and gaps in this literature, and describe current research needs related to understanding CPA sociodemographic risk factors. It is expected that an extensive narrative description of caretaker and child CPA sociodemographic risk factors reported in studies that used the identified survey databases will reveal an array of contrasting results. Furthermore, interpretations of the expected mixed findings will be impeded because survey databases are expected to be heterogeneous with respect to the survey designs, CPA definitions, sociodemographic definitions, and analytic approaches used. The results are expected to support the view that before a quantitative review can be conducted (e.g., a meta-analysis), future research must more frequently include similar variable definitions, study designs, and data analytic approaches.