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Contamination occurs in observational research on child maltreatment when individuals assigned to a comparison condition have, unbeknownst to investigators, been exposed to maltreatment. Contamination is a major threat because it biases the statistical significance and magnitude of maltreatment effects, leading to replication failures and an underestimation of the public health impacts of child maltreatment. Despite its presence, there are no established solutions for addressing contamination in child maltreatment research. This symposium brings together leading experts who will present cutting-edge research addressing a range of critical topics for detecting and correcting contamination in observational research on child maltreatment: 1) a conceptual foundation for what contamination is and how it occurs, 2) the prevalence of contamination across independent and international research, 3) the impact contamination has on the direction, statistical significance, and magnitude of maltreatment effects for a range of public health outcomes in nationally-representative and multi-wave designs, and 4) innovative methodological solutions for detecting and correcting contamination. This symposium will provide needed information for child maltreatment researchers to correct contamination in observational research and improve the accuracy, and therefore replicability, of casual effects across public health outcomes. A formal discussion and integration of results presented in this symposium will also aid trauma researchers at large, as contamination can occur in any observational research design.