Title
Why does child maltreatment occur? Caregiver perspectives and analyses of neighborhood structural factors across twenty years
Date Issued
01 April 2019
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Gross-Manos D.
Haas B.
Richter F.
Korbin J.
Coulton C.
Crampton D.
Spilsbury J.
Publisher(s)
Elsevier Ltd
Abstract
Research on caregivers' views of factors that contribute to child maltreatment and analyses of neighborhood structural factors offer opportunities for enhancing prevention and intervention efforts. This study compared explanations of the factors that contribute to child maltreatment in a neighborhood-based sample of adult caregivers at two-time points: 1995–1996 and 2014–2015 along with analyses of neighborhood structural conditions during the same period. The study sample consisted of two cross-sectional subsamples: 400 adult caregivers in 20 census tracts in Cleveland, Ohio from a 1995–1996 study, and 400 adult caregivers of the same 20 census tracts surveyed in 2014–2015. At each time point, residents were asked to rate how much each of 13 factors contributes to child abuse and neglect. Median regression analyses adjusted for individual and neighborhood characteristics showed that “lack of religion” decreased somewhat in importance over time, while that of “single parents” increased slightly. Otherwise, there was substantial consistency in caregivers' perceptions of factors contributing to maltreatment over the two study points. In terms of overall ranking, at each time point the most important contributors to child maltreatment were “drugs,” “alcohol,” and “psychological or emotional problems,” while the least important were “divorce,” “single parents,” and “lack of religion.” Differences in ratings of contributing factors were associated with individual and neighborhood characteristics, most consistently by participant race and age and by neighborhood maltreatment investigation rate. Despite these differences, for any maltreatment prevention or intervention effort using or planning to use maltreatment etiology in some way in its activities, etiology seems to represent a fairly stable platform for programming.
Start page
138
End page
145
Volume
99
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Psicología (incluye terapias de aprendizaje, habla, visual y otras discapacidades físicas y mentales)
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85061048449
Source
Children and Youth Services Review
ISSN of the container
01907409
Sponsor(s)
This study was supported by grant R01 HD077002 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development , Bethesda, MD, and a post-doctoral fellowship award (Gross-Manos) from the Haruv Institute , Hebrew University, Jerusalem . We are grateful for the support of all our study participants.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus