Family-level social determinants of child and adolescent maltreatment
View abstract on PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.Child maltreatment (CM) prevention requires addressing interconnected social risks. Poverty, homelessness, substance use, and externalizing behaviors predict official reports of CM, but not self-reports.
Area Of Science
- Child development and public health research.
- Social determinants of health.
- Child maltreatment (CM) and its prevention.
Background
- Child maltreatment (CM) is influenced by material, psychosocial, biologic, and behavioral risk factors, alongside healthcare access.
- Existing research has not fully explored the interplay of these social risks in relation to child and adolescent CM, hindering the development of effective prevention strategies.
Purpose Of The Study
- To apply the World Health Organization's intermediary social determinants of health (I-SDH) framework to create a comprehensive model of family-level risk and protective factors.
- To prospectively examine the relationship between these multidimensional family factors and the occurrence of CM in childhood and adolescence.
Main Methods
- Utilized data from the Longitudinal Studies for Child Abuse and Neglect (N=1354).
- Measured CM types (physical, supervisory neglect) during middle childhood (7-12 years) and adolescence (13-16 years) using Child Protective Services (CPS) reports and youth self-reports.
- Regressed CM occurrences on family-level I-SDH domains assessed during early (0-6 years) and middle childhood.
Main Results
- Unadjusted analyses showed all I-SDH domains related to CM.
- Post-False Discovery Rate (FDR) adjustment, poverty and homelessness/eviction were linked to CPS-reported physical and supervisory neglect in middle childhood.
- Child externalizing problems and household substance use were associated with CPS-reported CM in both middle childhood and adolescence.
- No significant associations were found between I-SDH and self-reported CM after FDR adjustment.
Conclusions
- Findings underscore the necessity for multifaceted interventions and policies targeting I-SDH to prevent involvement with Child Protective Services (CPS).
- The lack of association with self-reported CM raises questions about the broader impact of I-SDH-focused strategies and suggests potential biases in CPS reporting.
- Future research should differentiate between CM measures and their antecedents to better inform prevention efforts.
Related Concept Videos
Other adult family members and siblings play a crucial role in shaping children’s social and emotional development. While parents or primary caregivers are often the central figures in early attachment and socialization, other adults in a child’s life, such as grandparents, aunts, and uncles, can significantly influence developmental outcomes. These influences depend on each adult’s personality and may help compensate when a primary caregiver is emotionally distant or...
Schizophrenia, a complex psychiatric disorder, has been historically misunderstood. Early psychological theories attributed its origins to childhood trauma and unresponsive parenting. However, contemporary research largely rejects these notions, favoring the vulnerability-stress hypothesis. This model proposes that individuals with a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia may develop the disorder following exposure to significant environmental stressors. Notably, studies on high-risk...
Conduct disorder is a complex mental health diagnosis characterized by a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior that violates societal norms, the rights of others, or age-appropriate rules. The diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder require the presence of at least three problematic behaviors within the past 12 months, with at least one occurring in the past six months. These behaviors are grouped into four categories: aggression toward people and animals; destruction of property;...
Parent-child interactions lay the foundation for how we understand relationships throughout life. These interactions are not uniform across families; instead, they are shaped by a range of environmental, emotional, and behavioral factors unique to each caregiver-child dynamic. Social psychologists study these early relationships to understand how patterns formed in infancy influence social functioning and interpersonal behavior in adulthood.Attachment Theory and Early Relational ModelsJohn...
A modern form of aggression is bullying. As you learn in your study of child development, socializing and playing with other children is beneficial for children’s psychological development. However, as you may have experienced as a child, not all play behavior has positive outcomes. Some children are aggressive and want to play roughly. Other children are selfish and do not want to share toys. One form of negative social interactions among children that has become a national concern is...
Socio-emotional development in infancy is primarily shaped by early emotional responses and social connections, with temperament playing a central role. Temperament refers to the consistent patterns in an individual's emotional and behavioral responses, observable even in infancy. By examining temperament, researchers can better understand an infant's unique ways of interacting with the world, influencing subsequent personality and socio-emotional growth.
Primary Temperament Types

