This paper reports the results of a critical review of empirical evidence relating to the aetiology of child sexual abuse (CSA) published over the last 15 years. The current review found that the psychology, criminal history and prior victimisation of the perpetrator and the gender, disability status, sexuality and family circumstances of the victim are important risk factors for CSA. Offence characteristics such as the offender‐victim relationship, modus operandi of the perpetrator and absence of a capable guardian are also found to be important markers of risk. We make suggestions for future research frameworks and designs, and we discuss the implications of the evidence for future primary prevention initiatives, practice and policy. We use this evidence to make recommendations for the development of child maltreatment theory more generally. Key Practitioner Messages Understanding of CSA perpetration is not well advanced and it is likely to be far more complex than currently thought. Intersectionality exists between cultural and sociocultural influences for CSA. The causes and consequences of CSA are both different to and the same as other forms of maltreatment, but we do not yet have sufficiently nuanced evidence to say how much these diverge and converge. The evidence is mixed and difficult to interpret regarding offenders' own childhood experiences of CSA.

Child protection continues to be a pressing social problem. Robust and relevant research is essential in order to ensure that the scale and nature of child maltreatment are understood and that preventative and protective measures are effective. This paper reports selected results from a mapping review of research conducted in the UK and published between January 2010 and December 2014. The purpose of the review was twofold: to develop a typology of child protection research; and to use this typology to describe the features and patterns of empirical research undertaken recently in the UK in order to inform a future research agenda. The paper reports the maltreatment types, substantive topics and research designs used within empirical research published in academic journals. It identifies a number of challenges for the field including the need for conceptual clarity regarding types of abuse, greater methodological diversity and a shift of focus from response to prevention of child maltreatment. The importance of a national strategic agenda is also emphasised.

This paper draws on the results of a commissioned systematic map of UK child protection empirical research published between 2010 and 2014. It analyses current patterns in child protection research in relation to three variables -disciplinary background of authors, types of maltreatment examined, and focus of the research -and considers the relationship between these. It finds first authors' disciplines to be reliable indicators of both the focus and topic of the research, with the dominant fields of psychology, medicine, and social work addressing respectively the long term outcomes of sexual abuse, the short term outcomes of physical abuse, and the care system's response to child maltreatment. The proportion of research dedicated to specific types of maltreatment appears to depend on factors other than their real-world prevalence. Instead, definitional issues and ease of access to research participants appearing to be more influential in determining the topic of the research. UK child protection research appears to show narrow multidisciplinary interaction and little focus on preventative or ameliorative interventions. The development of a coordinated national strategy adopting an interdisciplinary approach in the design and commissioning of child protection research could help maximise research efforts by reducing duplication and potentially facilitating the emergence of more innovative directions.

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