Jill E. Korbin

Neighborhoods and Child Maltreatment: A Multi-Level Study.

OBJECTIVE To better understand how neighborhood and individual factors are related to child maltreatment. METHOD Using an ecological framework, a multi-level model (Hierarchical Linear Modeling) was used to analyze neighborhood structural conditions and individual risk factors for child abuse and neglect. Parents (n = 400) of children under the age of 18 were systematically selected from 20 randomly selected census-defined block groups with different risk profiles for child maltreatment report rates. Parents were administered the Neighborhood Environment for Children Rating Scales, the Child Abuse Potential Inventory, the Zimet measure of social support, and the Conflict Tactics Scales as a measure of childhood experience with violence. RESULTS Neighborhood factors of impoverishment and child care burden significantly affect child abuse potential after controlling for individual risk factors. However, neighborhood effects are weaker than they appear to be in aggregate studies of official child maltreatment reports. Variation in child abuse potential within neighborhoods is greater than between neighborhoods. However, adverse neighborhood conditions weakend the effects of known individual risk and protective factors, such as violence in the family of origin. CONCLUSIONS If individual potential for child maltreatment is more evenly distributed across neighborhoods than reported maltreatment, then neighborhood and community play an important, if as yet unspecified, role in child maltreatment. Multi-level models are a promising research strategy for disentangling the complex interactions of individual and contextual factors in child maltreatment.

Measuring Neighborhood Context for Young Children in an Urban Area

Awareness of worsening conditions in urban areas has led to a growing interest in how neighborhood context affects children. Although the ecological perspective within child development has acknowledged the relevance of community factors, methods of measuring the neighborhood context for children have been quite limited. An approach to measuring neighborhood environments was tested using the average perceptions of caregivers of young children sampled from high- and low-risk block groups. Individual- and aggregate-level reliabilities and discriminant validity were acceptable for dimensions of neighborhood quality and change, participation in block organizations, disorder and incivilities, service usage and quality, and retaliation against adults. However, for measures of neighborhood interaction and the tendency of adults to intervene with children, there was virtually no agreement among respondents within block groups, resulting in poor aggregate reliability. A model of variability may be a more promising way of characterizing neighborhoods along these dimensions.

Child abuse as an international issue

This paper provides a background and suggests a strategy for an international approach to policy development concerning child abuse. First, child abuse is defined in a way that makes it applicable across cultures and national boundaries as that portion of harm to children that results from human action that is proscribed, proximate and preventable. A number of other dimensions, such as the degree of social sanction or social censure, are outlined that also affect the likelihood that given harm will be regarded as child abuse. Cross-cultural research also reveals that certain categories of children--such as those in poor health, females, unwanted children and those born under difficult circumstances or with disvalued traits or under conditions of rapid socioeconomic change--are more vulnerable to maltreatment in many countries. The paper argues for a two-pronged international strategy that first urges individual countries to make a priority of the particular types of abuse that are in most urgent need of attention in their society as well as participating at the same time in a concerted international focus on three widely occurring forms of child abuse: parental child battering, selective neglect, and sexual abuse.

Impoverishment and child maltreatment in African American and European American neighborhoods

Although it is well documented that child maltreatment exerts a deleterious impact on child adaptation, much less is known about the precise etiological pathways that eventuate in child abuse and neglect. This paper reports on a multimethod ecological study of the relationship between neighborhood structural factors and child maltreatment reports in African American and European American census tracts. The study had two major components. First, in an aggregate analysis, the effects of four measures of community structure (impoverishment, child care burden, instability, and geographic isolation) on child maltreatment report rates were examined separately for predominantly African American (n = 94) and predominantly European American (n = 189) census tracts. Impoverishment in particular had a significantly weaker effect on maltreatment rates in African American than in European American neighborhoods. Second, focused ethnographies were conducted in four selected census tracts with child maltreatment report rates in the highest and lowest quartiles. Ethnographic data point to the importance of the social fabric in accounting for differences in child maltreatment report rates by predominant neighborhood ethnicity.

Building Community Capacity for Violence Prevention

The capacity of communities to prevent violence is examined fromthree perspectives: youth violence, child maltreatment, and intimate partner violence. The analysis suggests that community social control and collective efficacy are significant protective factors for all three types of violence, but these need to be further distinguished for their relationships to private, parochial, and state controls. It is argued that strong interpersonal ties are not the only contributor to collective efficacy and violence prevention. Weak ties, including those outside the community, and organizational ties are also seen as necessary. Violence prevention programs should be structured in ways that contribute to the communities’ own capacity to prevent violence.

Alcoholism and Elder Abuse

A comparison group study of abusing and nonabusing caregivers suggested a correlation between alcohol use and abuse and violence against elderly parents. Findings reveal that abusers were more likely than nonabusers to drink, to become intoxicated, and to be identified as having a drinking problem. Policy and practice implications are discussed.

Defining elder mistreatment in four ethnic groups across two generations.

Ethnic and generational variation in elder mistreatment has only recently been explored. This research builds upon pioneer work in the field by examining perceptions of elder mistreatment across four ethnic groups (European-American, African-American, Puerto Rican, and Japanese-American) and two generations (elder and ‘baby boom’ caregiver). Focus group discussions revealed differences in defining elder mistreatment and responding to it. They also suggested that psychological abuse and neglect may be more important mistreatment forms than previously acknowledged. Policy and practice implications of study results are considered. jg]Key words gw]Elder mistreatment gw]Elder abuse gw]Ethnic groups gw]Generations

Fatal maltreatment by mothers: a proposed framework.

This paper proposes a framework for understanding fatal maltreatment by mothers based on an in-depth study of incarcerated women. Despite its extreme outcome, fatal maltreatment is not homogeneous. While the specifics of each case varied, the circumstances leading to the fatality followed a similar progression. The framework is characterized by a recurrent pattern of abuse culminating in the fatality. All of the women had abused the deceased child prior to the fatality. The women provided warning signals to professionals and to members of their personal networks (kin, friends, neighbors) by alerting them to the abusive incidents. The fatal incident was not a one-time assault, but the exit point of a continuing pattern of abusive interactions that was maintained by the womans ability to explain, rationalize, and minimize the abuse to herself and to her network. Future research efforts must be directed beyond the fatal incident to the circumstances leading up to it. Intervention and education must be aimed beyond biological parents to the wider network and community.

Childhood histories of women imprisoned for fatal child maltreatment.

A history of childhood maltreatment is the most consistently reported characteristic of abusive parents. Retrospective research with nine women imprisoned for fatal child abuse revealed childhood histories of maltreatment. Detailed life histories indicated that the meaning of the abuse to the individual had an important impact on later abusive parenting. The types of childhood abuse varied. Childhood abuse was one in a set of factors contributing to abusive parenting. Retrospective studies underline the need for prospective research on long-term outcomes of childhood abuse.

Incarcerated mothers' perceptions and interpretations of their fatally maltreated children☆

Fatally maltreated children are an elusive component in the complex interaction that has led to their premature deaths. Retrospective research with women imprisoned for fatal child maltreatment indicated recurring themes of maternal interpretations of their children as rejecting and developmentally abnormal, either advanced or delayed. Separations and difficulties during reunions were critical. The fatality was not a one-time event, but the exit point of a recurrent cycle of abusive interaction.