The Impact of Contextual Factors on Child Maltreatment

Reports and Behaviors Jill E. Korbin, Ph.D.

Associate Dean, Professor of Anthropology

Director, Schubert Center for Child Studies

Presentation for Workshop, Board on Children, Youth and Families 1/30-31, 2012

Some Major Messages from Neighborhood Research

• Context influences child maltreatment

• Neighborhood and Community are important contexts whose influence follows multiple pathways

• Context is complicated but measurable: Measurement requires mixed methods and multiple perspectives

• There are potentially diverse pathways in neighborhood and community impact

ONTOGENETIC DEVELOPMENT (INDIVIDUAL)

MICROSYSTEM (FAMILY)

EXOSYSTEM (COMMUNITY: ENVIRONMENT)

MACROSYSTEM (CULTURE)

Belsky’s (1980) Ecologically Integrative Model of Child Abuse. National Research Council (1993) Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect, p. 110

Research Support for Neighborhood & Community Influence

• Resurgence of interest in contextual factors influencing child maltreatment and its application to prevention and intervention

• Theoretical approaches primarily from social organization and human development

• Empirical studies on neighborhood: 3 major findings from review of neighborhood studies

• Mixed method approaches

Neighborhood Impact Follows Diverse Pathways

• 3 potential pathways through which neighborhood impacts child maltreatment: Neighborhood influences on behavior

Neighborhood influences on definition, recognition and reporting

Family and child characteristics

• Each pathway has implications for research, practice and policy; pathways are not independent and influence one another

• An organizing frame

Family and Child Characteristics

Neighborhood

Structure

Neighborhood

Processes

Transactional

Processes

Maltreatment

Neighborhood

Disadvantage

Collective

Efficacy

Environmental

Stressors

Behaviors

Neighborhood

Demographics

Social

Organization

Social

Support

Maltreatment

Reports

Neighborhood

Stability

Community

Resources

/ Deficits

Definition,

Recognition, &

Reporting

Processes

Alternative Pathways: Neighborhood Influence on Child Maltreatment

(Coulton, Crampton, Irwin, Spilsbury, and Korbin, 2007)

Behavioral influences

Definition, recognition,

& reporting

Selection

Neighborhood Pathway 1: Influences on Maltreatment Behavior

• Research studies support the impact of neighborhood conditions (primarily structural factors) on neighborhood processes that then influence parental behaviors

• Balance of risk and protective factors

• Implications for designing neighborhood-based programs

• Long-standing controversies on increased stress, increased scrutiny, definitional and normative variability

• Disparities and disproportionality contribute to these debates

• Important pathway because majority of research uses reports to CPS as the measure of child maltreatment

Neighborhood Pathway 2: Influences on Definition, Recognition and Reporting

Neighborhood Pathway 3: Family and Child Characteristics

• Selection and Residential Mobility: how families sort themselves into neighborhoods

• Challenge to research in understanding neighborhood effects

• Relationship to other factors in the research literature related to child maltreatment (e.g. social isolation, collective efficacy)

Implications of Pathways for Research, Practice & Policy (NOT mutually exclusive)

• Pathway 1: Behavioral Influences:

o research to better understand neighborhood conditions with implications specifically for prevention and intervention to improve neighborhood context

• Pathway 2: Definition, Recognition & Reporting

o research to better understand the factors involved, with implications specifically for improving recognition and reporting practices and policies

• Pathway 3: Family & Child Characteristics

o research to better understand residential selection and efforts to improve housing and neighborhood conditions

Other Complexities • “Neighborhood” designations (e.g. census

tract, block group)

• Variation in neighborhood boundaries among residents, children versus adults

• Neighborhoods are not independent units

• Causal factors may show different patterns in different neighborhoods

• Neighborhood factors may differ by “type” of maltreatment

Mixed Methods in Neighborhood and Child Maltreatment Research

• Aggregate and structural measures (e.g. census-level, administrative records, geocoding)

• Neighborhood Resident Perceptions: interviews, surveys, ethnography

• Structured observations of environments and interactions

Neurons to Neighborhoods 2nd of 10 Core Concepts

“Culture influences every aspect of human

development and is reflected in childrearing beliefs and practices designed to promote healthy adaptation….

“Given the magnitude of its influence on the daily experiences of children, the relative disregard for cultural influences in traditional child development research is striking.”

National Research Council and Institute of Medicine (2000), p. 25