Taking Stock of Canadian Population-Based Data Sources to Study Child Maltreatment: What’s Available, What Should Researchers Know, and What are the Gaps?

Violence against children is a complex social, health, and legal issue in Canada associated with poor physical and mental health (PHAC, 2012; Burczyka, 2017). Eliminating violence against children is a target of multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outlined by the United Nations General Assembly in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations, 2022). While the SDGs were developed to provide international indicators to assess the progress of signatory nations, insufficient data prevented an evaluation of Canada (UNICEF, n.d. a). Although national, population-based child maltreatment research was underdeveloped in Canada prior to 2012, Statistics Canada, the nation’s statistical agency, has been collecting data since the 1960s. However, it may be difficult for researchers to navigate the range of data sources available to study child maltreatment in Canada because they span multiple topics. This paper provides an overview of national survey and administrative data sources capturing child maltreatment housed by Statistics Canada and other government departments. These data may inform future data collection on child maltreatment and assess Canada’s progress on SDG indicators related to the protection of children from violence. The paper concludes with a discussion of the benefits of using survey and administrative data, a new methodology to study child maltreatment, gaps in child maltreatment research, and policy implications.