Community Informant Explanations for Unusual Neighborhood Rates of Child Maltreatment Reports

This study explored perceptions of community informants on socioenvironmental factors that explain why rates of child maltreatment reporting are different in neighborhoods with similar population characteristics. This study used data from the SoCal Neighborhoods and Child Welfare study, a multiphase, mixed-methods study of neighborhoods in Los Angeles and San Diego counties. Semistructured qualitative interviews with key informants (N = 28) in 22 census tracts explored factors that account for differences in maltreatment rates among sociodemographically similar neighborhoods. Thematic content analysis revealed three themes regarding neighborhood contributors to maltreatment behaviors and reporting: (a) community norms and values, (b) community resources and providers, and (c) housing dynamics and built environment. Findings indicate complexity in forces that affect maltreatment behavior and reporting. Adding to research on neighborhood social dynamics and child maltreatment, findings suggest that composite indicators of maltreatment within neighborhoods are affected by maltreatment behaviors and the definition, recognition, and reporting of maltreatment.     

DETERMINANTS OF INDIVIDUAL NEIGHBORHOOD TIES AND SOCIAL RESOURCES IN POOR URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS

Studies on life in poor urban neighborhoods suggest the importance of kin and non-kin ties for support. Research also notes the dearth of certain ties that are important to locate economic and social resources. This research evaluates the determinants of certain types of social resources for residents in poor urban neighborhoods. Specifically, I consider the relationship between five types of neighborhood ties for residents--religious, kin, friendship, neighbor, and informal jobs--as well as race/ethnicity, and neighborhood poverty and social resources. Using the Urban Poverty & Family Life Survey and OLS and logistic regression analyses, results show religious and friendship ties are important predictors of individual social resources and support. Also, neighborhood poverty is insignificant in most of the analyses and when it is important, residents in more impoverished areas are more likely to seek out social resources than their counterparts in non-poor and moderately poor areas. These findings support variants of Compression and Composition theories as possibleexemplars for explaining ways in which residents secure social resources in poor urban neighborhoods.     

Neighborhood racial & ethnic diversity as a predictor of child welfare system involvement

Using U.S. Census and child maltreatment report data for 2052 Census tracts in Los Angeles County, California, this study uses spatial regression techniques to explore the relationship between neighborhood social disorganization and maltreatment referral rates for Black, Hispanic and White children. Particular attention is paid to the racial–ethnic diversity (or ‘heterogeneity’) of neighborhood residents as a risk factor for child welfare system involvement, as social disorganization theory suggests that cultural differences and racism may decrease neighbors' social cohesion and capacity to enforce norms regarding acceptable parenting and this may, in turn, increase neighborhood rates of child maltreatment. Results from this study indicate that racial–ethnic diversity is a risk factor for child welfare involvement for all three groups of children studied, even after controlling for other indicators of social disorganization. Black, Hispanic and White children living in diverse neighborhoods are significantly more likely to be reported to Child Protective Services than children of the same race/ethnicity living in more homogeneous neighborhoods. However, the relationships between child welfare system involvement and the other indicators of social disorganization measured, specifically impoverishment, immigrant concentration child care burden, residential instability, and housing stress, varied considerably between Black, Hispanic and White children. For Black children, only housing stress predicted child maltreatment referral rates; whereas, neighborhood impoverishment, residential instability, and child care burden also predicted higher child maltreatment referral rates for Hispanic and White children. Immigrant concentration was unrelated to maltreatment referral rates for Black and Hispanic children, and predicted lower maltreatment referral rates for White children. Taken together, these findings suggest that racial–ethnic diversity may be one of the more reliable neighborhood-level demographic indicators of child welfare risk across different racial/ethnic groups of children. However, many of the other neighborhood characteristics that influence child maltreatment referrals differ for Black, Hispanic and White children. Consequently, neighborhood-based family support initiatives should avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to child abuse prevention and strategically consider the racial/ethnic make-up of targeted communities.     

The legacy of disadvantage: multigenerational neighborhood effects on cognitive ability

This study examines how the neighborhood environments experienced over multiple generations of a family influence children's cognitive ability. Building on recent research showing strong continuity in neighborhood environments across generations of family members, the authors argue for a revised perspective on "neighborhood effects" that considers the ways in which the neighborhood environment in one generation may have a lingering impact on the next generation. To analyze multigenerational effects, the authors use newly developed methods designed to estimate unbiased treatment effects when treatments and confounders vary over time. The results confirm a powerful link between neighborhoods and cognitive ability that extends across generations. A family's exposure to neighborhood poverty across two consecutive generations reduces child cognitive ability by more than half a standard deviation. A formal sensitivity analysis suggests that results are robust to unobserved selection bias.     

A review of the relationship between poverty and child abuse and neglect: Insights from scoping reviews,systematic reviews and meta-analyses

An up-to-date and accurate picture of the evidence on the impact of poverty is a necessary element of the debate about the future direction of children's social care services internationally. The purpose of this paper is to update evidence about the relationship between poverty and child abuse and neglect (CAN) published since a previous report in 2016 (Bywaters et al., 2016). A systematic search was conducted, identifying seven reviews. Poverty was found to be consistently and strongly associated with maltreatment, be that in terms of familial or community-level poverty, or in terms of economic security. Findings demonstrated that both the type and the quantity of economic insecurities impacted child maltreatment. Certain economic insecurities – income losses, cumulative material hardship and housing hardship – reliably predicted future child maltreatment. Likewise, as families experienced more material hardship, the risk for maltreatment intensified. In some studies, the relationship between poverty and maltreatment differed by abuse type. Future reviews need to investigate individual papers and their findings across different CAN measures, definitions, samples, abuse types and conceptualisations of poverty to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current research base and the directions which need to be taken to further understand and prevent CAN.     

The link between male employment and child maltreatment in the U.S., 2000–2012

Child maltreatment rates are strongly linked to adult male behavior, suggesting that labor market conditions, by influencing male behaviors, can influence maltreatment rates. Using the unemployment rate as the sole measure of labor market conditions, past studies generally conclude that employment conditions do not systematically influence child maltreatment rates. By contrast, this study found that state-level child maltreatment rates were statistically significant and inversely related to the state-level employment rates of men, aged 20 to 34 yrs old. It also found that the interaction of child poverty and living in a single-parent household is positively related to child maltreatment rates. Policies to reduce employment problems are discussed.     

‘What can I do’? Child welfare workers’ perceptions of what they can do to address poverty

Within the field of child welfare, critical questions have been posed about the intersecting issues of child maltreatment and poverty. The study of the quality and nature of this intersection has continued relevance in light of evidence showing the increased likelihood of maltreatment of children living in poverty. Although child welfare workers interact directly with families involved with the child welfare system, the study of workers’ perceptions of whether or not they address families’ poverty and, if so, how they go about it has not yet been conducted. The study presented begins to address this gap. Analysis from individual interviews with 30 child welfare workers revealed that they differed in their perception of whether or not poverty should be addressed by child welfare and how. Findings suggest workers do what they can despite various barriers, including families’ limitations and the fragile US social welfare safety net. Based on the findings, current practice models and policies that impact poverty and child maltreatment reduction are discussed.     

You are where you live: Methodological challenges to measuring children’s exposure to hazards

Many of the challenges that affect children living in poverty are directly related to the neighborhoods in which they live. Places that inhibit healthy living and those that expose children to environmental pollution tend to more heavily affect children in poverty. This environmental injustice is a natural concern of the fields of urban planning, geography, and children’s health. Yet many decisions that affect opportunities for healthy living are made without a full understanding of how neighborhood context influences such opportunities. In this brief, we paint inequalities in child health outcomes as a spatial problem, review some of the geospatial tools used by urban planners and geographers, discuss common reasons for misclassification or misrepresentation of spatially explicit problems, and propose more suitable methods for measuring opportunities and exposures germane to the field of child poverty. Throughout, we emphasize the need for evidence-driven, spatially grounded responses to child poverty issues with a spatial dimension.     

Neighborhood poverty and children's food insecurity

Food insecurity among children and their families negatively affects children's health and well-being. While the link between household resources and food insecurity is well-established, family income alone does not explain food insecurity; neighborhood disadvantage, shown to affect other areas of children's development, may also play a role in food insecurity. This study examines associations between neighborhood poverty and children's food insecurity, and whether family characteristics account for identified associations. We merge data on kindergarten-age children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten 2010–11 Cohort (ECLS-K:2011) with data on poverty rates from the American Community Survey (ACS) and on food access from the USDA's Food Environment Atlas using children's residential census tracts (N = 12.550 children in 3750 tracts). Using a series of multilevel models, we test for associations between neighborhood poverty, household economic, demographic, and parenting characteristics, and food insecurity at the child, adult, and household levels. Children living in higher-poverty neighborhoods are more likely to experience food insecurity than those in lower-poverty neighborhoods. Associations between neighborhood poverty and household- and adult-level food insecurity disappear when household characteristics are controlled. However, living in a very high poverty neighborhood remains predictive of child-level food insecurity, which may be an indicator of severe hardship. Findings indicate that neighborhood poverty may be a useful proxy to identify vulnerable children.     

Cumulative and Relative Disadvantage as Long‐Term Determinants of Negative Self‐feelings*

We analyze the long‐term effects of neighborhood poverty and crime on negative self‐feelings of young adults. Cumulative and relative disadvantage explanations are tested with the interactive effect of (1) neighborhood and individual‐level economic disadvantage and (2) neighborhood crime and economic disadvantage. Results from a longitudinal study following adolescents to young adulthood show that the development of negative self‐feelings (a combination of depression, anxiety, and self‐derogation) is determined by relative, rather than cumulative disadvantage. The poor in affluent neighborhoods have the highest negative self‐feelings, while the relatively wealthy in poor neighborhoods have the lowest negative self‐feelings. Similarly, we find the highest increase in negative self‐feelings is found in an affluent neighborhood with crime and not in a poor neighborhood with crime.     

Examining the Interaction of Daily Hassles Across Ecological Domains on Substance Use and Delinquency Among Low-Income Adolescents of Color

The increased risk for substance use and delinquency among adolescents of color has been partially attributed to increased exposure to daily hassles. Although a certain number of hassles are normative, especially among family and peers, adolescents of color experience more stressors in their neighborhood or directly related to fewer resources than their White counterparts. These hassles may interact across ecological systems to impact behavioral outcomes among adolescents. This may be especially true for young people living in public housing. Based on ecological systems theory, this study tests the relationship between experiences of hassles across multiple ecological levels and problem behaviors in a sample of 315 ethnically diverse early adolescents (M_age = 12; 51% female) living in public housing neighborhoods in two large metropolitan areas in the United States. A positive relationship was found between family hassles and both substance use and delinquency, as well as between school hassles and substance use. When the interactions between family, peer, school, and neighborhood/resource hassles were considered, five statistically significant interactions were found. The study results reinforce the role of contextual factors, such as living in low-income neighborhoods and the complexity of hassles interacting at multiple levels of a young person’s daily ecology, on adolescent outcomes.     

A MODEL OF RACIAL RESIDENTIAL HISTORY AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH SELF-RATED HEALTH AND MORTALITY AMONG BLACK AND WHITE ADULTS IN THE UNITED STATES

We construct a dynamic racial residential history typology and examine its association with self-rated health and mortality among black and white adults. Data are from a national survey of U.S. adults, combined with census tract data from 1970–1990. Results show that racial disparities in health and mortality are explained by both neighborhood contextual and individual socioeconomic factors. Results suggest that living in an established black neighborhood or in an established interracial neighborhood may actually be protective of health, once neighborhood poverty is controlled. Examining the dynamic nature of neighborhoods contributes to an understanding of health disparities.     

Pathways of risk and resilience between neighborhood socioeconomic conditions and parenting

This study examined pathways between neighborhood socioeconomic conditions (concentrated affluence and poverty), neighborhood resources and collective efficacy, and three parenting behaviors: warmth, harshness, and physical aggression. Data were drawn from the 3-year-old cohort of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, a neighborhood-based study (N = 999). Multilevel path models revealed that greater neighborhood affluence was indirectly associated with mothers' lower reports of physical aggression with their children via more neighborhood services for children, as reported by an independent sample of neighborhood residents. However, analyses using propensity score weights suggest the association between neighborhood affluence and parental aggression may be due to selection. Results are discussed with respect to implications for preventing child maltreatment.     

How Theory and Research Inform Citizen Participation in Poor Communities: The Ecological Perspective and Theories on Self- and Collective Efficacy and Sense of Community

The engagement of residents in poor, disadvantaged communities has been a focus of social work practice since the early part of the twentieth century. In the person:environment configuration, a renewed appreciation is building for community-level factors in human behavior and functioning. Poor neighborhoods are transactional settings that can negatively impact human behavior and development. However, active citizen participation can positively impact neighborhoods, including strengthening residents' individual and collective capacities and relationships. This article uses the ecological perspective to examine the neighborhood as a transactional setting that influences individual and collective behavior and outcomes and citizen participation as vehicle for improving outcomes for residents living in poor communities. The article also discusses theory and research on self- and collective efficacy and sense of community to understand the motivation for and benefits of citizen participation. Implications for social work research and practice are discussed.     

Disadvantaged Neighborhoods and Adolescent Aggression: Behavioral Genetic Evidence of Contextual Effects

This study used behavioral genetic methods to examine differences in genetic and environmental influences on adolescent aggression across adequate and disadvantaged neighborhoods. Analyses used National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data from 2,342 monozygotic twin, dizygotic twin, full‐sibling, and half‐sibling pairs classified into structurally adequate and disadvantaged neighborhoods according to Census data on the proportion of single‐parent households with children, proportion of families in poverty, and unemployment levels in sibling pairs' block groups. Separately estimating genetic and environmental influences across adequate and disadvantaged neighborhoods revealed that although genetic influences are significant in both adequate and disadvantaged neighborhoods, shared environmental influences (e.g., family influences shared by siblings) were significant only among adolescents from disadvantaged neighborhoods. These results provide insight into differences in individual‐level influences that contribute to adolescent aggression within these different types of neighborhoods. Significant shared environmental influences in disadvantaged neighborhoods suggest the importance of family processes is increased by neighborhood disadvantage.     

Urban Poverty and Neighborhood Effects on Crime: Incorporating Spatial and Network Perspectives

Research on neighborhoods and crime is on a remarkable growth trajectory. In this article, we survey important recent developments in the scholarship on neighborhood effects and the spatial stratification of poverty and urban crime. We advance the case that, in understanding the impact of neighborhoods and poverty on crime, sociological and criminological research would benefit from expanding the analytical focus from residential neighborhoods to the network of neighborhoods that individuals are exposed to during their daily routine activities. This perspective is supported by re‐emerging scholarship on activity spaces and macro‐level research on inter‐neighborhood connections. We highlight work indicating that non‐residential contexts add variation in criminogenic exposure, which in turn influence offending behavior and victimization risk. Also, we draw on recent insights from research on gang violence, social and institutional connections, and spatial mismatch and call for advancements in the scholarship on urban poverty that investigates the salience of inter‐neighborhood connections in evaluating the spatial stratification of criminogenic risk for individuals and communities.     

Resurgent Ethnicity among Asian Americans: Ethnic Neighborhood Context and Health

In this study I investigate the associations of neighborhood socioeconomic and social environments with the health of Asian Americans living in both Asian ethnic neighborhoods and non-Asian neighborhoods. I use a sample of 1962 Asian Americans from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS, 2003-04). Three key findings emerge. First, absolute levels of socioeconomic and social resources do not differ greatly between the Asian ethnic neighborhoods and non-Asian neighborhoods in which Asian Americans live. Second, the ethnic neighborhood context conditions the effects of neighborhood education on health so that higher neighborhood education is related to better self-rated health among Asian Americans only when they live in Asian ethnic neighborhoods. Finally, the social environment, measured by everyday discrimination and social cohesion, does not differ in its health effects for individuals living in Asian ethnic and non-Asian neighborhoods. Together, these findings illuminate the complex ways that racial and ethnic neighborhood concentration impacts health.     

NEIGHBORHOOD POVERTY AND NONMARITAL FERTILITY: SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL DIMENSIONS

Data from 4,855 respondents to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics were used to examine spatial and temporal dimensions of the effect of neighborhood poverty on teenage premarital childbearing. Although high poverty in the immediate neighborhood increased the risk of becoming an unmarried parent, high poverty in surrounding neighborhoods reduced this risk. The effect of local neighborhood poverty was especially pronounced when surrounding neighborhoods were economically advantaged. Measuring exposure to neighborhood poverty over the childhood life course yielded stronger effects than measuring exposure at a single age. Neither racial differences in the level of poverty in proximate neighborhoods nor racial differences in neighborhood poverty over the childhood life course explained the racial difference in nonmarital fertility.     

Metropolitan Heterogeneity and Minority Neighborhood Attainment: Spatial Assimilation or Place Stratification?

Using geo-referenced data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, in conjunction with decennial census data, this research examines metropolitan-area variation in the ability of residentially mobile blacks, Hispanics, and whites to convert their income into two types of neighborhood outcomes-neighborhood racial composition and neighborhood socioeconomic status. For destination tract racial composition, we find strong and near-universal support for the "weak version" of place stratification theory; relative to whites, the effect of individual income on the percent of the destination tract population that is non-Hispanic white is stronger for blacks and Hispanics, but even the highest earning minority group members move to tracts that are "less white" than the tracts that the highest-earning whites move to. In contrast, for moves into neighborhoods characterized by higher levels of average family income, we find substantial heterogeneity across metropolitan areas in minorities' capacity to convert income into neighborhood quality. A slight majority of metropolitan areas evince support for the "strong version" of place stratification theory, in which blacks and Hispanics are less able than whites to convert income into neighborhood socioeconomic status. However, a nontrivial number of metropolitan areas also evince support for spatial assimilation theory, where the highest-earning minorities achieve neighborhood parity with the highest-earning whites. Several metropolitan-area characteristics, including residential segregation, racial and ethnic composition, immigrant population size, poverty rates, and municipal fragmentation, emerge as significant predictors of minority-white differences in neighborhood attainment.