Ecological and developmental perspectives on child abuse and neglect are not yet fully incorporated in child abuse prevention programs. Community-based prevention of physical child abuse is probably more advanced than for other types of abuse in focusing on processes. The most successful approaches to child abuse prevention start early in children's lives and aim to improve parenting and parent-child relationships. Research indicates that child abuse prevention approaches need to be sustained, that the development of community-based child abuse prevention programs should reflect awareness of the child's personal context, and that parents should be included in these programs. Truly ecological approaches require concurrent programs that work on both protective and risk factors and that reflect and impact on processes in the various domains of the child's world. The review of community-based child abuse prevention programs focuses on what constitutes primary prevention, risk reduction versus protection, parent-child relationships, child characteristics, physical abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, bullying, and emotional abuse. 46 references and 1 figure