Neighborhood Poverty, Social Capital, and the Cognitive Development of African American Preschoolers

In this investigation, we examine the impact of the ecological context of the residential neighborhood on the cognitive development of children by considering social processes not only at the family-level but also at the neighborhood-level. In a socioeconomically diverse sample of 200 African American children living in 39 neighborhoods in Baltimore, we found that neighborhood poverty was associated with poorer problem-solving skills over and above the influence of family economic resources and level of positive parent involvement. Sampson has theorized that neighborhood poverty affects child well-being by altering levels of neighborhood social capital as well as family social capital. Although we found that indicators of neighborhood and family social capital were associated with cognitive skills, these factors did not explain the association between neighborhood poverty and problem-solving ability. Implications for future research in the area of neighborhoods and child development are discussed.     

Neighborhood Disorder and Children’s Antisocial Behavior: The Protective Effect of Family Support Among Mexican American and African American Families

Using data from a sample of 673 Mexican Origin families, the current investigation examined the degree to which family supportiveness acted as a protective buffer between neighborhood disorder and antisocial behavior during late childhood (i.e. intent to use controlled substances, externalizing, and association with deviant peers). Children's perceptions of neighborhood disorder fully mediated associations between census and observer measures of neighborhood disorder and their antisocial behavior. Family support buffered children from the higher rates of antisocial behavior generally associated with living in disorderly neighborhoods. An additional goal of the current study was to replicate these findings in a second sample of 897 African American families, and that replication was successful. These findings suggest that family support may play a protective role for children living in dangerous or disadvantaged neighborhoods. They also suggest that neighborhood interventions should consider several points of entry including structural changes, resident perceptions of their neighborhood and family support.     

Parent-to-child physical aggression,neighborhood cohesion,and development of children's internalizing and externalizing

Taking a risk and resilience approach, this study examined (1) whether child age moderates the association between exposure to parent–child physical aggression (PCPA) and initial levels and growth in internalizing and externalizing problems, and (2) whether neighborhood social cohesion is a protective factor for children who experience PCPA. Data came from 2810 caregivers of children aged 3–15 who participated in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). Multilevel growth models showed that age moderated PCPA's association with internalizing problems, such that the association was stronger in older children than in younger children. Age also moderated PCPA's association with externalizing problems, such that the association was stronger in younger children than in older children. Neighborhood cohesion partially attenuated the association between PCPA and internalizing but only for older children; living in a neighborhood characterized by high cohesion mitigated levels of internalizing for maltreated children aged 11 years and older.     

Does Neighborhood Social Capital Buffer the Effects of Maternal Depression on Adolescent Behavior Problems?

Neighborhood characteristics have been shown to impact child well-being. However, it remains unclear how these factors combine with family characteristics to influence child development. The current study helps develop that understanding by investigating how neighborhoods directly impact child and adolescent behavior problems as well as moderate the influence of family characteristics on behavior. Using multilevel linear models, we examined the relationship among neighborhood conditions (poverty and social capital) and maternal depression on child and adolescent behavior problems. The sample included 741 children, age 5–11, and 564 adolescents, age 12–17. Outcomes were internalizing (e.g. anxious/depressed) and externalizing (e.g. aggressive/hyperactive) behavior problems. Neighborhood poverty and maternal depression were both positively associated with behavior problems for children and adolescents. However, while neighborhood social capital was not directly associated with behavior problems, the interaction of social capital and maternal depression was significantly related to behavior problems for adolescents. This interaction showed that living in neighborhoods with higher levels of social capital attenuated the relationship between maternal depression and adolescent behavior problems and confirmed the expectation that raising healthy well-adjusted children depends not only on the family, but also the context in which the family lives.     

Poverty,ethnicity, and risk of obesity among low birth weight infants

The independent and joint effects of family and neighborhood poverty and ethnicity upon weight trajectories from age two to six-and-a-half were examined using data from the Infant Health and Development Program (N = 985), an early intervention program for low birth weight children and families. At age two, family poverty was associated with higher body mass index (BMI), whereas neighborhood poverty and ethnicity were not. Over time, the BMI of toddlers from poor and near poor neighborhoods increased nonlinearly, while those from nonpoor neighborhoods remained stable. BMIs of Hispanic-American toddlers increased steadily over time, unlike African-American and Anglo-American toddlers. Although initially similar, over time African-American toddlers' BMIs increased more rapidly than Anglo-American toddlers. Family and neighborhood poverty and ethnicity were associated with BMI. More work is needed on how poverty and ethnicity contribute to differences in early weight gain in conjunction with sociocultural and environmental factors in the home and community.     

Parolee Concentration,Risk of Recidivism,and the Consequences for Neighborhood Crime

ABSTRACT

We examine whether the clustering of certain types of higher-likelihood-of-recidivating parolees in neighborhoods differentially influences violent and property crime. We also test whether the relationship between the concentration of certain types of parolees and crime is moderated by disadvantage. We examine parolees released between 2000 and 2009 in Cleveland, Ohio, and neighborhood crime data. Results suggest that increases in certain types of parolees contribute to a corresponding increase in crime. This suggests that risk factors associated with reoffending might explain larger crime trends in neighborhoods. Furthermore, the broader neighborhood context compounds these risk factors, resulting in higher rates of crime.     

Child Maltreatment,Problem Behaviors,and Neighborhood Attainment

Using data from a prospective cohort design study of a group of children with documented histories of abuse and neglect (n = 908) and matched controls (n = 667), this paper examines whether problem behaviors (e.g., prostitution, crime, school problems, and homelessness) in young adulthood explain the link between maltreatment in childhood and living in high‐risk neighborhoods in middle adulthood. Problem behaviors were assessed at mean age of 29 and neighborhood characteristics were assessed at mean age of 40. Child maltreatment predicted living in less desirable neighborhoods in middle adulthood. Problem behaviors in young adulthood partially mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and residence in less desirable neighborhoods in middle adulthood. The direct paths from child maltreatment to neighborhoods were not significant for Black children. For White children, there was a direct relationship between child maltreatment and living in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood. Problem behaviors were a stronger mediator between child maltreatment and living in more disordered and less socially cohesive neighborhoods for Black children, while the problem behaviors were a stronger mediator for living in more economically disadvantaged and less socially cohesive neighborhoods for White children. Further research is needed to understand these racial differences. Interventions should focus on preventing problem behaviors to minimize the risk of residency in high‐risk neighborhoods.     

Changes in neighborhood poverty from 1990 to 2000 and youth's problem behaviors

This study used data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, a multilevel, longitudinal study of children sampled from 80 diverse neighborhoods, to explore associations among changes in neighborhood poverty from 1990 to 2000 and changes in youth's internalizing problems and property and violent offenses over 6 years (N = 3,324; mean age across waves = 12.6 years). After accounting for a host of background characteristics and weighting for the propensity to stay in the original sampled neighborhood, results indicated that neighborhood poverty dynamics were unfavorably linked to boys' problem behaviors. In high-poverty (>30% in 1990) neighborhoods, decreasing poverty was associated with boys' greater internalizing problems and higher probability of increasing in violent behavior than stable neighborhood poverty. In moderate-poverty (20%-30% in 1990) neighborhoods, boys in neighborhoods that got poorer had more internalizing problems than boys in stably poor neighborhoods. Likewise, in low-poverty (<20% in 1990) neighborhoods, increasing poverty was associated with boys' higher probability of increasing in violent behavior than stable neighborhood poverty. Effect sizes were larger in high- and moderate-poverty neighborhoods than in low-poverty neighborhoods. This study complements the neighborhood mobility literature and has implications for interventions aimed at community revitalization.     

The Influence of Neighborhood Aesthetics,Safety, and Social Cohesion on Perceived Stress in Disadvantaged Communities

Limited research has explored how specific elements of physical and social environments influence mental health indicators such as perceived stress, or whether such associations are moderated by gender. This study examined the relationship between selected neighborhood characteristics and perceived stress levels within a primarily low‐income, older, African‐American population in a mid‐sized city in the Southeastern U.S. Residents (n = 394; mean age=55.3 years, 70.9% female, 89.3% African American) from eight historically disadvantaged neighborhoods completed surveys measuring perceptions of neighborhood safety, social cohesion, aesthetics, and stress. Multivariate linear regression models examined the association between each of the three neighborhood characteristics and perceived stress. Greater perceived safety, improved neighborhood aesthetics, and social cohesion were significantly associated with lower perceived stress. These associations were not moderated by gender. These findings suggest that improving social attributes of neighborhoods may have positive impacts on stress and related benefits for population health. Future research should examine how neighborhood characteristics influence stress over time.     

The Effect of Residential Neighborhood on Child Behavior Problems in First Grade

Child behavior problems have been identified as being responsible for the greatest reduction in quality of life for children between ages 1 and 19. In this study, we examine whether neighborhood social processes are associated with differences in child behavior problems in an economically and racially diverse sample of 405 urban-dwelling first grade children and whether parenting behavior mediates and/or moderates the effects of neighborhoods. Furthermore, we examine whether neighborhood social processes play the same role with regards to child behavior problems at differing levels of neighborhood economic impoverishment. Results of multivariate multilevel regression analyses indicate that a high negative social climate is associated with greater internalizing problems. High potential for community involvement for children in the neighborhood was associated with fewer behavior problems, but only in economically impoverished neighborhoods. Differences in parenting behavior did not appear to mediate neighborhood effects on behavior problems, and parenting characterized by a high degree of positive involvement was associated with fewer behavior problems in all types of neighborhoods.     

Social Cohesion and Self-Rated Health: The Moderating Effect of Neighborhood Physical Disorder

Using data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey and its companion datasets, we examined how neighborhood disorder, perceived danger and both individually perceived and contextually measured neighborhood social cohesion are associated with self-rated health. Results indicate that neighborhood disorder is negatively associated with health and the relationship is explained by perceived cohesion and danger, which are both also significant predictors of health. Further, individually perceived cohesion emerges as a more important explanation of self-rated health than neighborhood-level social cohesion. Finally, neighborhood disorder and perceived cohesion interact to influence health, such that cohesion is especially beneficial when residents live in neighborhoods characterized by low to moderate disorder; once disorder is at high levels, cohesion no longer offers protection against poor health. We interpret our findings as they relate to prior research on neighborhoods, psychosocial processes, and health, and discuss their implications for intervention efforts that address disorder in urban communities.     

Contextual amplification of pubertal transition effects on deviant peer affiliation and externalizing behavior among African American children.

The effects of the pubertal transition on behavior problems and its interaction with family and neighborhood circumstances were examined with a sample of 867 African American children 10-12 years of age. Pubertal development status, pubertal timing, and primary caregivers' parenting behaviors were significantly related to affiliation with deviant peers and externalizing behaviors. Externalizing behavior among early-maturing children was associated positively with primary caregivers' use of harsh-inconsistent discipline and negatively with nurturant-involved parenting practices. Disadvantaged neighborhood conditions were significantly associated with deviant peer affiliation. The effect of pubertal transition varied according to family and neighborhood conditions: Early-maturing children living in disadvantaged neighborhoods were significantly more likely to affiliate with deviant peers. Early-maturing children with harsh and inconsistent parents were significantly more likely to have externalizing problems.     

Children and youth in neighborhood contexts

Neighborhoods are increasingly studied as a context where children and youth develop; however, the extent of neighborhoods' impact remains debatable because it is difficult to disentangle this impact from that of the family context, in part because families have some choice as to where they live. Evidence from randomized experiments, studies using advanced statistical models, and longitudinal studies that control for family characteristics indicates that neighborhoods do matter. In nonexperimental studies, small to moderate associations were found, suggesting that children and adolescents living in high-income neighborhoods had higher cognitive ability and school achievement than those living in middle-income neighborhoods, and children and adolescents living in low-income neighborhoods had more mental and physical health problems than those living in middle-income neighborhoods. The home environment has been shown to be partly responsible for the link between neighborhood and children's development. For adolescents, neighborhood effects are partially accounted for by community social control. Experimental studies in which families were randomly assigned to move to low-poverty neighborhoods from housing projects found larger neighborhood effects than nonexperi-mental research, particularly for boys' outcomes. Additional issues reviewed are relevant neighborhood characteristics, theoretical models explaining the pathways underlying neighborhood effects, methods for research assessing neighborhood processes, and policy implications.     

Neighborhood violent crime and adolescent relationship aggression

Research has shown that neighborhoods play a role in the etiology of violence. However, few adolescent relationship aggression (ARA) studies have objective measures of violent neighborhoods. Drawing on a nationally representative sample of youth, this study examines the association between ARA and local levels of violent crime (measured using geocoded Uniform Crime Report data from each of the youths’ residential neighborhoods). Study analyses are based on survey data from 723 youth (ages 10–18) in current or recent dating relationships (351 males and 372 females) in the Survey on Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence (STRiV), a national representative household panel survey exploring interpersonal violence and related aggression among adolescents. About 19% of the sample reported ARA victimization in their most recent dating relationship (ARA perpetration was 17%). Neighborhood violent crime in the study (males living in 86.9 and females 99.8) was slightly lower than the national average of 100. With a broad national sample, 40% non-Whites, hypotheses guided by theories of neighborhood influence were tested. The study did not find an association between neighborhood violent crime and ARA victimization and perpetration, controlling for key demographic factors. The results, for a broad range of high- and low-crime neighborhoods, suggest that neighborhood violence does not seem to affect individual rates of ARA. The results suggest the ARA victimization and perpetration are perhaps ubiquitous and found both in low and high violent crime neighborhoods, suggesting that addressing local violent crime rates alone does not seem to be a path to also reducing ARA.     

Neighborhood crime as a predictor of individual differences in emotional processing and regulation

Emerging research suggests that early exposure to environmental adversity has important implications for the development of brain regions associated with emotion regulation, yet little is known about how such adversity translates into observable differences in children's emotion‐related behavior. The present study examines the relationship between geocoded neighborhood crime and urban pre‐adolescents' emotional attention, appraisal, and response. Results indicate that living in a high‐crime neighborhood is associated with greater selective attention toward negatively valenced emotional stimuli on a dot probe task, less biased appraisal of fear on a facial identification task, and lower rates of teacher‐reported internalizing behaviors in the classroom. These findings suggest that children facing particularly high levels of environmental threat may develop different regulatory processes (e.g. greater use of emotional suppression) than their peers from low‐crime neighborhoods in order to manage the unique stressors and social demands of their communities.     

Family characteristics as mediators of the influence of problem drinking and multiple risk status on child mental health

Structural equation modeling was used to test a theoretical model in which family cohesion and family reframing coping were hypothesized as mediators between family drinking problems, multiple risk factors, negative life events, and child mental health (conduct disorder, depression, anxiety) in two-parent families. Family cohesion mediated the relationships of family drinking problems and negative life events to child conduct disorder and depression. Negative life events mediated the relationships of family drinking problems and family multiple risk to child conduct disorder. Family reframing coping did not function as a mediator nor was it related to child mental health when other factors were considered simultaneously. Results indicate that increasing family cohesion and reducing sources of stress within the family (negative life events) represent promising areas for interventions for children with problem-drinking parents. Work on this study was funded in part by the National Institute for Mental Health Grant 2-P50-MH39246-06 to support a Preventive Intervention Research Center. The authors gratefully acknowledge contributions made by Rita Shell, Marcia Michaels, Joanne Gersten, George Knight, and Carolyn Berg.     

班级同学关系与青少年外化问题行为:自尊和亲子亲合的作用

采用问卷法对1694名中学生进行调查,考察自尊在班级同学关系和青少年外化问题行为之间的中介作用,以及该中介过程是否受到亲子亲合（父子亲合和母子亲合）的调节。结果发现：（1）控制性别和年龄之后,班级同学关系对青少年外化问题行为具有显著的负向预测作用;（2）班级同学关系不仅可以直接负向预测外化问题行为,还可以通过自尊间接预测外化问题行为;（3）父子亲合和母子亲合均在班级同学关系与自尊的关系间起调节作用;（4）父子亲合而非母子亲合能够调节班级同学关系对外化问题行为的直接影响。总之,班级同学关系通过自尊的部分中介作用影响青少年的外化问题行为,且父子亲合和母子亲合进一步对该过程起到不同的调节作用。     

Vulnerability to loneliness among fathers of children with autism spectrum disorder: The role of interpersonal and familial resources

Fathers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) might be at increased risk of becoming lonely. In the current study, we explored the differences in loneliness between fathers of children with and without ASD and identified interpersonal and familial resources (social support, family cohesion, and family adaptability) that might be related to levels of loneliness. Using a cross-sectional design, 348 fathers (of 114 children with ASD and 234 without) completed a series of questionnaires. Fathers of children with ASD reported higher levels of loneliness and lower levels of social support and family cohesion. A moderated mediation model indicated that the interaction between social support and family cohesion mediated the association between ASD group (i.e., ASD vs. non-ASD) and fathers' loneliness. Findings suggest the importance of interpersonal and familial resources (e.g., perceived social support and family cohesion) for family members at risk of loneliness.     

Family and Neighborhood Fit or Misfit and the Adaptation of Mexican Americans

In this study, a person-environment fit model was used to understand the independent and combined roles of family and neighborhood characteristics on the adjustment of adults and children in a sample of 750 Mexican American families. Latent class analysis was used to identify six qualitatively distinct family types and three quantitatively distinct neighborhood types using socioeconomic and cultural indicators at each level. The results showed that members of single-parent Mexican American families may be particularly at-risk, members of the lowest-income immigrant families reported fewer adaptation problems if they lived in low-income neighborhoods dominated by immigrants, members of economically successful immigrant families may be more at-risk in integrated middle class neighborhoods than in low-income neighborhoods dominated by immigrants, and members of two-parent immigrant families appear to be rather resilient in most settings despite their low socioeconomic status.     

Community Influences on Adjustment in First Grade: An Examination of an Integrated Process Model

We examined the impact of neighborhood characteristics both directly and indirectly as mediated by parent coaching and the parent/child affective relationship on behavioral and school adjustment in a sample of urban dwelling first graders. We used structural equations modeling to assess model fit and estimate direct, indirect, and total effects of neighborhood structural and social characteristics on parenting behavior and child outcomes. Observed physical incivilities in the neighborhood were associated with lower levels of parent eliciting behavior and higher levels of child behavior problems. The effects of neighborhood structural characteristics were mediated partially through neighborhood community involvement with children, which had a direct significant impact on parent eliciting behavior and an indirect effect on child behavior problems. Neighborhood community involvement with children was associated with higher levels of parent eliciting behavior and lower levels of child behavior problems. Observed physical incivilities had a significant indirect association with poor school adjustment and a marginally significant association with positive school adjustment to first grade. Neighborhood community involvement with children was more strongly associated with positive school adjustment than poor school adjustment.