Saturday, 15 January 2005 - 8:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Causes and Outcomes of Child Maltreatment

Neighborhood effect on child maltreatment: A multilevel study

The purpose of this study is to examine the neighborhood effects on the etiology of child maltreatment in light of ecological theory. This study focuses on the neighborhood effects on child maltreatment after controlling for individual and family level factors. Furthermore, it is one of this study’s main goals to highlight the differences between the etiological model for physical child abuse and that of child neglect. This study utilizes data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which has been designed to examine the causes of health-related behaviors of nationally representative sample of early adults in the U.S. between 2001 and 2002. A series of multilevel logistic regression analyses is employed to address the effects of individual, family, and neighborhood level factors on the risk of child maltreatment. Results indicate that the prevalence rates of child neglect and physical child abuse vary significantly across neighborhood units after controlling for individual and family level factors (tau00 (physical abuse) = 1.038, chi-square (1) = 10.62, p (one-tail) = .001; tau00 (neglect) = 0.541, chi-square(1) = 1.71, p (one-tail) = .096). This study found that average neighborhood socioeconomic status, violent crime rate, and regional location are significantly associated with the neighborhood level prevalence rate of child neglect and physical abuse. Furthermore, this study shows that the impacts of individual and family level factors on the risk of child maltreatment are moderated by neighborhood factors such as perceived resources in neighborhood, violent crime rate, and urbanity. Various child characteristics are associated in the multilevel model of child maltreatment and found to significantly contribute to parents’ overall risk of physically abusing or neglecting their children, over and above the risk associated with parent and family level factors. Separate models for physical child abuse and child neglect are tested and compared, indicating that there are distinctive etiological models for different types of maltreatment. The results of this study imply that social workers should incorporate various neighborhood factors into their practice, research, and policymaking processes. Also, this study results suggest that both practice and policy efforts to prevent child maltreatment must be tailored to each type of maltreatment. Methodological limitations of this study and recommendations for further research are presented.

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