How might neighborhood built environment influence child maltreatment? Caregiver perceptions

Child maltreatment remains a serious but potentially preventable public health concern in the United States. Although research has examined factors associated with child maltreatment at the neighborhood level, few studies have explicitly focused on the role of the neighborhood built environment in maltreatment.

We begin to address these gaps by investigating caregivers' own perceptions of mechanisms by which neighborhood built environments may affect child maltreatment.

Utilizing a grounded theory approach, we examined open-ended interview data from 400 adult residents residing in 20 different Cleveland, Ohio neighborhoods (census tracts) and caring for at least one child under 18 years of age.

Our analysis revealed three primary pathways through which caregivers linked the neighborhood built environment to potential child maltreatment: housing density, physical neighborhood space as shaping family relations, and the internalization of the surrounding neighborhood-built environment.

Our findings suggest that aspects of the neighborhood built environment, such as the presence of abandoned houses or the lack of recreational centers, can be stressors themselves and may also critically alter families' thresholds for navigating other everyday pressures. Conversely, aspects of the neighborhood built environment, such as housing density, may work to mitigate the risk of maltreatment, either by promoting social support or by increasing the likelihood that maltreatment is reported to authorities. Additional research, both qualitative and quantitative, is integral to building and testing models of these separate but related pathways by which the neighborhood built environment may link to child maltreatment.