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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 1998;279:494.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Billions of dollars are spent in the United States each year on programs to prevent family violence, despite the lack of scientific evidence that these efforts are effective, according to a new report from a committee of the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine.

The committee studied 114 evaluations of treatment and prevention programs aimed at child abuse, domestic violence, and elder abuse. The group concluded that local officials often adopt programs based on the results of unreplicated small-scale studies and do so without sufficient consideration of the studies' limitations.

The report notes, for example, that while mandatory reporting laws for suspected incidents of child abuse or neglect have often overwhelmed social services agencies, fewer than half of all reported cases are substantiated. Because it is not clear whether mandatory reporting has been effective in curbing such problems, states should refrain from expanding mandatory reporting . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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