Neighborhood and Household Factors in the Etiology of Child
Maltreatment
Dataset Number: 94
Investigator(s): Jill Korbin, Claudia Coulton
Abstract: The study, Neighborhood and
Household Factors in the Etiology of Child Maltreatment, was a
four-year project conducted by the Center on Urban Poverty and Social
Change at Case Western Reserve University, and funded by the National
Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. This study consisted of two parts.
In the first, ethnographic component of the study, investigators
conducted face-to-face, open-ended interviews with parents to
determine how parents residing in neighborhoods with different rates
of child maltreatment defined child abuse and neglect and viewed its
etiology. The ethnographic data are not archived with NDACAN and are
not summarized in this user's guide. The second, quantitative
component of this study examined the effects of neighborhood social
structure and process on child maltreatment. Investigators used
hierarchical linear modeling to disentangle individual and
neighborhood effects with respect to neighborhood rate of child
maltreatment and potential for child abuse.
Parents (n=400) of children under 18 were systematically
selected from 20 Census-defined block groups in the City of Cleveland
with different child maltreatment rates. Using findings from the
earlier, ethnographic component of this study, the investigators
developed and administered four scales intended to measure the
processes by which neighborhood structural characteristics might
affect child maltreatment. Scales of neighborhood quality and
neighborhood facilities were intended to measure community resources,
while scales of disorder and deterioration, and lack of control of
children were intended to measure social control. Structural measures
included census demographic data, which were subjected to factor
analysis to produce the factors of impoverishment, instability, and
child care burden. Maltreatment measures included parents' responses
to the Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory and official neighborhood
rates for child maltreatment.
Results of analyses using hierarchical linear modeling
indicated that the factors of impoverishment and child care burden
significantly affected child abuse potential after controlling for
individual risk factors. While variation in child abuse potential
within neighborhoods was greater than between neighborhoods, adverse
neighborhood conditions weakened the effects of known individual risk
and protective factors.
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