School of Social Work Professor Carol Coohey, MSW, PhD, and Associate Professor Aislinn Conrad, MSW, PhD, have co-authored a study, "Trends, Diagnoses, and Hospitalization Costs of Child Abuse and Neglect in the United States of America" in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The research team also included Armeda Wojciak, University of Minnesota; Brandon Butcher and Corinne Peek-Asa, UI College of Public Health; and Resmiye Oral, Dartmouth College.

The research team conducted a secondary analysis of the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) to examine child abuse and neglect hospitalization from 1998–2016. The NIS is the largest all-payer, inpatient care database in the United States and is maintained by the Health Care Utilization Project. Participants were youth 18 years and younger with discharged diagnoses of child abuse and neglect from hospitals.