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Child maltreatment and substance abuse are both international public health priorities. Research shows that child maltreatment increases the risk for substance use and problems. Thus, recognition of this relationship may have important implications for substance demand reduction strategies, including efforts to prevent and treat substance use and related problems. Latin America and the Caribbean is a rich and diverse region of the world with a large range of social and cultural influences. To date, relatively little work has addressed the link between child maltreatment and substance use in the region. A working group constituted by the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in June, 2010 identified this area as a priority area for a multinational research partnership. This paper summarizes existing information on drug use and child maltreatment in six participating countries, Colombia, El Salvador, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama and Uruguay, and considers the implications of child maltreatment prevention for demand reduction strategies to address substance use issues. A CICAD/CAMH-sponsored multinational research partnership has been formed, which will involve research on the link between child maltreatment and substance misuse, expertise exchange and resource sharing.

Introduction: Interventions aimed at reducing academic underachievement within the Jamaican educational system, have only experienced limited success. A possible reason is that these interventions tend to overlook socio-emotional factors that may affect student learning. A socio-emotional factor that has been identified in developed nations as increasing psychological distress and thereby lowering academic performance is experiencing maltreatment during childhood. However, some theorists believe that the effects of childhood maltreatment may be culturally determined. This research investigated whether experiencing maltreatment during childhood (neglect, physical, emotional and sexual abuse) would result in lowered academic performances among select Jamaican university students. Methods: Non-probability sampling was utilised to collect retrospective data from 131 university students. The participants completed a questionnaire consisting of the Adverse Childhood Experiences questionnaire, the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale along with questions about their academic performance. Results: 89.1% reported maltreatment experiences, while moderate to severe psychological distress was reported by 37.7% of the participants. Experiencing maltreatment was found to be associated with higher levels of psychological distress (p<0.05). Students who experienced sexual abuse were also found to have lower average grades (p<0.05). Discussion: This research, despite its limited generalisability, provides preliminary evidence that there is a link between experiencing maltreatment during childhood and increased psychological distress, within a Jamaican context. Participants who were sexually abused also had lower academic performances. Therefore, it may be beneficial to implement interventions aimed at preventing child maltreatment and fostering the socio-emotional functioning of the learner as a means of improving the academic performances of Jamaican students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]