On-site, but out of sight: analysis of determinants and age-related variation in child physical abuse outcomes in some selected Sub-Saharan African countries

Child physical abuse has become a global health and economic concern in recent times. It appears to be a never-ending cycle that not only harms humans in terms of health and social relations but also hinders every economy’s potential workforce. Since it is one of the major challenges facing millions of children, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, this study used descriptive statistics and a Binary Logistic regression model to: 1) compare the prevalence of child physical abuse with other forms of child protection violation across different age groups. 2) Examine the determinants and differential effects of child attributes and family characteristics on child physical abuse outcomes across two age groups. The study utilized data from the UNICEF Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys Round 6, which was conducted from 2017 to 2021. The following 10 countries were selected: Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, DR Congo, Madagascar, Malawi, Sao Tome and Principe, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, and Chad. The results revealed that child physical abuse, with a prevalence rate of 34.67% in 5–17 years and 27.66% in under-five children, was observed to be 4x more prevalent than other forms of child protection violation. The binary logistic regression result showed that age is significantly associated with physical abuse in younger children than older ones, with a differential effect of −0.13. While having a functional disability increases child abuse with a differential effect of −0.1, a child’s access to health insurance reduces abuse with a differential effect of −0.001. The boys experienced abuse more than girls, with a differential effect of 0.028. In a similar way, there is a difference in the effect of family characteristics like household size (0.002) and headship of household (0.001) in both age categories. With a p-value < 0.05, there is a significant age difference in the effect of child attributes and family characteristics on child physical abuse outcomes in the selected Sub-Saharan African countries. This signals a call for age-specific interventions in addressing the problems of physical abuse in Sub-Saharan Africa.