Child Abuse and Trauma

Child Abuse and Trauma is a research topic within Clinical Psychology. Science Explorer counts 41k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the long-term effects of childhood trauma and adversity, including the impact on mental health, neurobiological consequences, psychiatric disorders, adverse childhood experiences, maltreatment, emotional abuse, neural development, and resilience.

Childhood Trauma
Adverse Experiences
Mental Health
Neurobiological Consequences
Psychiatric Disorders
Adverse Childhood Experiences
Maltreatment
Emotional Abuse
Neural Development
Resilience

Research works: 41k
In the world top 10%: 4.1k
Top-10% rate: 9.9%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25: +12%
Largest producer: United States

Child Abuse and Trauma

Which countries lead Child Abuse and Trauma research?

By volume, the United States and the United Kingdom publish the most (3.4k and 914 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

1 United States 3.4k works
2 United Kingdom 914 works
3 Australia 617 works
4 Canada 554 works
5 China 504 works
6 Germany 331 works
7 Türkiye 304 works
8 India 221 works
9 Spain 185 works
10 Netherlands 184 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States3,420 · 47.3%United Kingdom914 · 12.6%Australia617 · 8.5%Canada554 · 7.7%6 others listed1,730 · 23.9%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Child Abuse and Trauma research?

By volume in 2022-now, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill publishes the most Child Abuse and Trauma research, followed by Harvard University and University of Toronto.

By volume, 2022-now

1 University of North Carolina at Chapel HillUnited States 78 works
2 Harvard UniversityUnited States 66 works
3 University of TorontoCanada 51 works
4 Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States 50 works
5 The University of MelbourneAustralia 45 works
6 University College LondonUnited Kingdom 43 works
7 University of MichiganUnited States 42 works
8 The Ohio State UniversityUnited States 41 works
9 Pennsylvania State UniversityUnited States 41 works
10 King's College LondonUnited Kingdom 41 works

Who are the leading researchers in Child Abuse and Trauma?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Child Abuse and Trauma include Christopher J L Murray, Simon Iain Hay and Theo Vos.

1 Christopher J L Murray United States 583k citations
2 Simon Iain Hay United States 452k citations
3 Theo Vos United States 439k citations
4 Ali H. Mokdad United States 429k citations
5 Richard M. Ryan United States 395k citations
6 Julian P. T. Higgins United Kingdom 390k citations
7 Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta Pakistan 371k citations
8 Ronald C. Kessler United States 360k citations
9 Mika Kivimäki United Kingdom 318k citations
10 Dan J. Stein South Africa 306k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Child Abuse and Trauma?

The most cited paper in Child Abuse and Trauma is "Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults" (Vincent J. Felitti, Robert F. Anda, Dale F. Nordenberg et al., 1998), with 18,997 citations. Next come "Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey" (10,490) and "Child abuse: Adolescent records vs. adult recall" (8,852).

Most cited papers
#	Paper	Released	Citations
1	Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults Vincent J. Felitti, Robert F. Anda, Dale F. Nordenberg et al. · American Journal of Preventive Medicine Open access	May 1998	18,997
2	Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey Ronald C. Kessler · Archives of General Psychiatry	Dec 1995	10,490
3	Child abuse: Adolescent records vs. adult recall Donna Della Femina, Catherine A. Yeager, Dorothy Otnow Lewis · Child Abuse & Neglect Open access	1990	8,852
4	The world report on violence and health Etienne G. Krug, James A. Mercy, Linda L. Dahlberg et al. · The Lancet	Oct 2002	8,532
5	Impact of Event Scale: A Measure of Subjective Stress Mardi J. Horowitz, Nancy Wilner, William F. Alvarez · Psychosomatic Medicine	May 1979	7,970

All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Child Abuse and Trauma research done?

The largest centres of Child Abuse and Trauma research in 2022-now are London (United Kingdom), New York (United States), Melbourne (Australia) and Brisbane (Australia).

Largest cities, 2022-now

1 LondonUnited Kingdom 223 works
2 New YorkUnited States 164 works
3 MelbourneAustralia 141 works
4 BrisbaneAustralia 103 works
5 MontrealCanada 98 works
6 BeijingChina 92 works
7 SydneyAustralia 89 works
8 AtlantaUnited States 86 works
9 TorontoCanada 84 works
10 BaltimoreUnited States 82 works

See Child Abuse and Trauma on the map

Where is the best place to study Child Abuse and Trauma?

Among universities, judged by research, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and King's College London score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged

40%

Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share

10%

Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale

30%

Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%

10%

Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad

10%

Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.

#	University	Score	Top 10%	Specialisation	Works	Growth
1	Harvard UniversityUnited States	71.6	18.7%	2.5×	66	+4.9%
2	Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States	67.9	18.5%	3.9×	50	+36.7%
3	King's College LondonUnited Kingdom	63.7	18.9%	5.6×	41	-4.6%
4	University College LondonUnited Kingdom	62.6	19.5%	3.2×	43	-2.7%
5	Universitat de ValènciaSpain	60.9	30.0%	3.4×	16	+18.1%
6	University of EdinburghUnited Kingdom	60.0	20.2%	3.7×	27	+63.1%
7	Renmin University of ChinaChina	59.2	26.2%	4.1×	11	+118.2%
8	Queensland University of TechnologyAustralia	58.3	21.2%	8.4×	24	+14.6%
9	The University of MelbourneAustralia	57.8	13.6%	4.8×	45	+8.0%
10	UNSW SydneyAustralia	55.9	13.8%	4.6×	35	+7.6%
11	University of AmsterdamNetherlands	55.9	18.0%	4.4×	22	+5.9%
12	Australian Catholic UniversityAustralia	55.7	21.7%	18.1×	16	+60.2%
13	University of New HampshireUnited States	55.5	28.4%	13.3×	10	-25.8%
14	Columbia UniversityUnited States	55.2	18.0%	3.4×	32	-5.8%
15	University of California, Los AngelesUnited States	54.8	10.6%	3.6×	35	+20.2%
16	University of California, San FranciscoUnited States	54.5	18.8%	3.9×	23	+11.0%
17	Liverpool John Moores UniversityUnited Kingdom	54.1	20.4%	9.7×	12	+133.7%
18	University of OttawaCanada	53.8	13.3%	4.8×	26	+24.4%
19	University of North Carolina at Chapel HillUnited States	53.6	5.9%	5.2×	78	-8.5%
20	Yale UniversityUnited States	53.6	14.8%	4.0×	36	-8.2%
21	McGill UniversityCanada	53.6	13.6%	4.3×	36	-6.2%
22	The University of QueenslandAustralia	53.4	11.2%	3.6×	29	+27.9%
23	Beijing Normal UniversityChina	53.4	15.8%	3.6×	24	+244.4%
24	McMaster UniversityCanada	52.7	15.4%	4.8×	23	+5.2%
25	Queen's University BelfastUnited Kingdom	52.4	14.5%	7.0×	20	+32.2%
26	University of RochesterUnited States	51.5	12.1%	5.1×	19	+17.9%
27	University of TorontoCanada	51.1	11.8%	3.0×	51	-19.8%
28	University of CalgaryCanada	51.0	9.2%	5.2×	30	+4.0%
29	Brigham Young UniversityUnited States	50.8	22.8%	7.6×	15	+10.1%
30	University of MichiganUnited States	50.7	15.1%	3.2×	42	-14.7%
31	Brown UniversityUnited States	50.7	10.0%	6.1×	24	+19.5%
32	Emory UniversityUnited States	50.2	10.2%	4.2×	28	+3.6%
33	University of CambridgeUnited Kingdom	49.7	14.6%	2.1×	22	-1.2%
34	Anhui Medical UniversityChina	49.7	18.4%	3.2×	12	+59.2%
35	Stanford UniversityUnited States	49.4	19.6%	1.7×	21	+3.9%
36	Boston UniversityUnited States	49.4	12.1%	4.1×	17	+23.4%
37	Monash UniversityAustralia	49.3	15.9%	4.2×	35	-13.6%
38	University of Wisconsin–MadisonUnited States	49.0	16.2%	2.7×	21	-6.6%
39	University of BirminghamUnited Kingdom	48.9	14.2%	3.4×	18	+53.5%
40	Universität UlmGermany	48.6	13.9%	13.4×	24	-3.1%
41	London School of Hygiene & Tropical MedicineUnited Kingdom	48.5	7.3%	7.1×	9	+28.7%
42	The Ohio State UniversityUnited States	48.1	7.2%	4.0×	41	+16.1%
43	University of GroningenNetherlands	47.0	22.5%	2.1×	12	+3.7%
44	University of Hong KongChina	46.9	13.8%	2.0×	16	+86.2%
45	Georgia State UniversityUnited States	45.3	5.5%	10.9×	26	+64.9%
46	Pennsylvania State UniversityUnited States	43.8	9.5%	4.5×	41	-19.8%
47	Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina	43.5	18.1%	1.2×	9	+10.1%
48	Curtin UniversityAustralia	43.3	14.1%	3.9×	10	+93.4%
49	Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina	41.6	25.3%	0.4×	10	+307.1%
50	University of Wisconsin–MilwaukeeUnited States	41.3	10.5%	11.9×	11	+56.3%
51	Central South UniversityChina	40.5	22.8%	0.6×	9	+21.0%
52	Charles Sturt UniversityAustralia	40.4	10.6%	11.6×	13	+88.0%
53	University of Technology SydneyAustralia	39.9	14.4%	2.6×	10	+22.1%
54	Radboud University NijmegenNetherlands	39.1	8.1%	2.5×	13	+21.0%
55	University of LancashireUnited Kingdom	38.7	8.3%	17.3×	12	+16.1%
56	OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan UniversityNorway	38.5	12.1%	10.0×	8	+17.5%
57	Karolinska InstitutetSweden	37.7	13.8%	2.8×	13	-5.4%
58	Université du Québec à Trois-RivièresCanada	37.5	8.2%	14.7×	11	+10.9%
59	University of the Sunshine CoastAustralia	37.0	5.6%	16.5×	13	+83.5%
60	Chinese University of Hong KongChina	36.9	10.6%	1.6×	10	+53.6%
61	Maastricht UniversityNetherlands	33.4	13.9%	2.5×	8	-4.2%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Child Abuse and Trauma, country by country

Is Child Abuse and Trauma research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 12% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Child Abuse and Trauma.

grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Child Abuse and Trauma as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.037% in 2024.

Fractional works of Child Abuse and Trauma over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

Discussion

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Which countries lead Child Abuse and Trauma research?

By volume, 2022-now

How concentrated that is

Which institutions lead Child Abuse and Trauma research?

By volume, 2022-now

Who are the leading researchers in Child Abuse and Trauma?

What are the most cited papers in Child Abuse and Trauma?

Where is Child Abuse and Trauma research done?

Largest cities, 2022-now

Where is the best place to study Child Abuse and Trauma?

Is Child Abuse and Trauma research growing?

Its share of all research

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Which topics inside it are moving

Related research

Discussion