Chandan JS, et al. - Researchers examined how childhood maltreatment is linked with the development of mental ill health and the initiation of new prescriptions for mental ill health. They conducted this population-based, retrospective, open cohort study, using the Health Improvement Network database that includes UK electronic medical records taken from 787 general practices throughout the UK. From Jan 1, 1995, to Dec 31, 2018, they identified 11,831,850 patients as eligible for inclusion. Childhood maltreatment was reported in 217,758 (1·8%) of these patients. In addition, they included 423,410 unexposed control patients with no recorded exposure to childhood maltreatment. A new prescription for any type of mental ill health was made for 30,911 (14·8%) patients in the exposed group (incidence rate 46·5 events per 1000 person-years) vs 36,390 (8·9%) patients in the unexposed group (20·5 per 1000 person-years) resulting in an adjusted IRR of 2·44. The analysis suggests that globally, one in three children is affected with childhood maltreatment; therefore, a doubled risk of developing mental ill health among these individuals substantially adds to the mental ill health burden in the UK. This indicates the essentiality of implementing public health approaches, including those aimed at preventing and detecting childhood maltreatment and its associated negative consequences, to reduce mental ill health.