Abstract
This study examines the impact of family and neighborhood factors on physical and psychological abuse across three developmental stages of children: early childhood (age 3), young school age (age 5), and middle childhood (age 9). Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal national cohort study of children from 20 urban U.S. cities, are used. Path analysis is employed to investigate the longitudinal relationships between family and neighborhood context variables and abuse risk, as well as the importance of different factors at key developmental stages. Economic hardship, maternal substance use, intimate partner violence, and exposure to community violence are found to be related to child abuse risk regardless of developmental stage, while maternal depression and neighborhood informal social control are found to have impacts only within certain child development stages. Findings suggest the need for early intervention and prevention strategies that specifically target economic hardship, poverty, intimate partner violence, and exposure to community violence.
Highlights
Experiences in childhood are critical to their long-term outcomes over their life course.Over the past several decades, researchers have discovered many critical aspects of the context in which a child grows that relate to their likelihood of experiencing child maltreatment [1]
The current study addresses this gap in the literature by modeling factors about the family, school, and neighborhood at three critical periods of child development—early childhood, young school age, and middle childhood
Maternal substance use at child age 3 was associated with increased risk for psychological abuse at ages 3 and 5, while substance use at child age 5 was associated with increased risk for both physical and psychological abuse at age 5 and psychological abuse at age 9, and substance use at child age 9 was associated with increased risk for both physical and psychological abuse at age 9
Summary
Over the past several decades, researchers have discovered many critical aspects of the context in which a child grows that relate to their likelihood of experiencing child maltreatment [1]. These include factors at various levels of the social ecology, with the characteristics of the child, parents, families, and neighborhoods affecting the likelihood that maltreatment occurs [2]. Similar to ecological systems theory, this perspective underscores the significance of understanding developmental outcomes through an interplay between an individual and one’s surrounding contexts (e.g., family, school, neighborhood). The theory emphasizes that individuals’ development and health can be understood properly only by examining developmental history, changing contexts, and evolving outcomes over time, highlighting the importance of applying a developmental lens in health science research
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