This paper summarizes data and experience with child abuse pertinent to child health practice. It goal is to foster sound and rational medical management. Because of the complex origins of child abuse, however, and of the institutional and social changes which shall have to accompany excellent practice if child abuse is effectively to be treated and prevented, issues of program and policy development are also addressed. The knowledge base about child abuse is conceptually and methodically limited. Our understanding of the problem of child abuse is broadened by several recent descriptive reports which demonstrate that childhood accidents and child abuse are temporally associated, that the parents of abused children are rarely neurotic or psychotic, and that the developmental sequelae of child abuse and neglect are serious. Child abuse has also been observed to be associated with poverty, low birth weight, parental alcohol and drug abuse, crime, social isolation, marital stress, and unemployment. The coordinated, interdisciplinary management of child abuse may reduce the toll of reinjury while children stay in their own homes. A helpful integrating concept in the diagnosis and treatment of child abuse is the family's capacity to protect its child, either from the consequences of their own angry feelings toward him, or from the hazards of his nuturing environment. (Author/JM)