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Published on: September 19, 2019
Longitudinal Patterns of Social Support Among Low-Income Parents: Implications for Child Maltreatment Risk
1Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
Child Maltreatment
|July 22, 2026
Summary
Parental social support trajectories reveal varying risks for child maltreatment. Dynamic assessment is crucial for timely interventions, especially for those with decreasing or low support, to prevent harsh parenting and child protective services contact.
Area of Science:
- Social sciences
- Psychology
- Public Health
Background:
- Parental social support is a critical factor in child well-being.
- Understanding temporal changes in social support is vital for identifying at-risk families.
- Previous research has not fully explored the dynamic trajectories of social support and their link to maltreatment indicators.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify distinct trajectories of social support among low-income parents over a five-year period.
- To examine the relationship between these social support trajectories and indicators of child maltreatment, including harsh parenting and child protective services (CPS) contact.
- To inform the development of targeted, time-sensitive interventions for families experiencing fluctuating or low social support.
Main Methods:
- Utilized repeated-measures latent class analysis on a dataset of 3,899 low-income parents.
- Analyzed social support data across a five-year period.
- Correlated identified social support trajectories with observed harsh parenting behaviors and CPS contact.
Main Results:
- Identified five distinct trajectories of parental social support.
- Parents in "Recovering Support" trajectories showed increased harsh parenting.
- Parents in "Low to High Support" and "Low Support" trajectories had higher rates of CPS contact.
- Parents in "Decreasing Support" trajectories exhibited both increased harsh parenting and higher CPS contact rates.
Conclusions:
- Parental social support is dynamic and impacts child maltreatment risk differently across trajectories.
- "Decreasing Support" trajectories represent a high-risk group for both harsh parenting and CPS involvement.
- Time-sensitive, dynamic assessment of social support is essential for effective maltreatment prevention and intervention strategies.
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