Gender Matters: How Girls and Boys Express Multisystemic Resilience in the Context of Maternal Syndemics

Substance use, violence, and HIV/AIDS (i.e. SAVA) are three adversities known to cluster and contribute to other poor health outcomes among marginalized communities due to structural factors including racism and poverty. Most research on SAVA has focused on negative outcomes (e.g. psychopathology) among those directly affected. To address important gaps in the literature, the current study explored how child gender moderates the associations between maternal SAVA severity and child individual, relational, community, and cultural resilience.

Participants included 263 children (M_age = 12.11, SD = 2.77; 59% girls; 82% Black) and their maternal caregivers. SAVA severity was examined as a continuous latent variable and resilience levels were calculated via confirmatory factor analysis based on manifest variables.

After adjusting for covariates, linear regression analyses indicated that, among girls but not boys, lower maternal SAVA severity was associated with higher individual (β = -0.22, p = .04, d = 0.01) and community (β = -0.27, p = .02, d = 0.02) level resilience. Further, across all children, lower maternal SAVA severity was associated with higher cultural resilience (β = -0.24, p < .001, d = 0.04). The association between maternal SAVA and relational resilience was not statistically significant.

Maternal SAVA impacts child resilience, but this effect is not uniform, as findings illustrated differential effects of SAVA by child gender and resilience level. This work emphasizes the critical need to assess and understand unique drivers of child resilience in order to intervene effectively on co-occurring adversities.