Abstract
Children in homeless families have high levels of adversity and are at risk for behavior problems and chronic health conditions, however little is known about the relationship between cognitive-emotional self-regulation and health among school-aged homeless children. Children (n = 86; mean age 10.5) living in shelters were assessed for health, family stress/adversity, emotional-behavioral regulation, nonverbal intellectual abilities, and executive function. Vision problems were the most prevalent health condition, followed by chronic respiratory conditions. Cumulative risk, child executive function, and self-regulation problems in children were uniquely related to child physical health. Homeless children experience problems with cognitive, emotional, and behavioral regulation as well as physical health, occurring in a context of high psychosocial risk. Several aspects of children’s self-regulation predict physical health in 9- to 11-year-old homeless children. Health promotion efforts in homeless families should address individual differences in children’s self-regulation as a resilience factor.
Highlights
Homelessness is an ongoing and pernicious problem in the United States, with about191,325 people in families staying in shelters at some point during 2010 and 191,903 during 2014, almost 60% of whom were children under 18 [1]
The current study addresses these limitations by assessing physical health and executive functions (EF) during middle childhood in this population using well-validated measures
Our findings, which take into account multiple aspects of child physical health such as chronicity and severity, contrast with results from younger homeless children that showed no association between directly tested EF and parent-reported asthma [2,23]
Summary
Homelessness is an ongoing and pernicious problem in the United States, with about. 191,325 people in families staying in shelters at some point during 2010 and 191,903 during 2014, almost 60% of whom were children under 18 [1]. Many more children are believed to be homeless using definitions that include those using public shelters, private shelters, doubled-up with friends and family, and other circumstances [2]. Pediatric health professionals and other child health advocates increasingly recognize the deleterious effects that residential instability can have upon children’s optimal development [3]. Homeless youth experience more cumulative and recent-life stress than their impoverished but housed peers [4,5]. Problems in health and well-being associated with child homelessness may result from elevated cumulative risk rather than homelessness itself [6].
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