The Impact of Neighborhood Poverty on Individual Economic Wellbeing and Child Maltreatment Outcomes

Background/Purpose: Neighborhood poverty is associated with a variety of negative outcomes for children, including a greater likelihood of experiencing child maltreatment. Researchers have begun to examine the pathways through which neighborhood poverty relates to child maltreatment, with an emphasis on the interactions between neighbors and the supports that parents receive. In contrast, family-level economic wellbeing is associated with decreased child maltreatment, but the extent to which the relationship between neighborhood poverty and child maltreatment is mediated by family-level economic wellbeing is unknown.

Methods: The current study is a path analysis, examining the relationships between neighborhood poverty when the focal child is age 1, family economic wellbeing when the child is age 3, and child maltreatment when the child is age 5. We used data from 3 waves of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal cohort study of 4,898 children from large, urban cities in the United States, followed from birth to age 15. Neighborhood poverty was measured continuously at the census tract level, family economic wellbeing was a composite measure of whether the mother was employed, an inversely scored measure of economic hardship, and the natural logarithm of income, and maltreatment was measured using three subscales of the Conflict Tactics Scale – Parent Child version, physical assault, psychological aggression, and neglect. We controlled for child race, and maternal education, age, marital status, depression, and anxiety.

Results: We found that neighborhood-level poverty was associated with child neglect only, and this path was mediated fully by family economic wellbeing. The paths from family-level economic wellbeing at age 3 to physical assault and psychological aggression at age 5 trended in the same direction, but were not significant. Neighborhood poverty at age 1 was associated with psychological aggression at age 5, but this pathway was not mediated by economic wellbeing. Neighborhood poverty was not related to physical assault in our model.

Conclusions and Implications: Neighborhood poverty has lasting impacts for children. Children who live in neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty at age 1 are more likely to be neglected at age 5. This relationship is mediated through family economic wellbeing. That is, neighborhood poverty at age 1 decreases the likelihood of family economic wellbeing at age 3, which in turn, increases the likelihood of neglect at age 5. Strategies to reduce child neglect must be multi-faceted. Reducing poverty within the United States is critical for reducing child neglect. Among parents living in low-income neighborhoods, concentrated assistance to increase family-level economic wellbeing is needed.