Study Findings

The ecological theory of child maltreatment considers child maltreatment the product of a multiplicity of risk factors in the abuser’s ontogenic development, the family

(microsystem), the community (exosystem), and the culture (macrosystem). Under this framework, this ecological study examined, at the census tract level, the rates of

substantiated neglect and substantiated physical/emotional abuse among children under four years old by their biological parents, and their relationships with six risk variables in the microsystem: (1) percent of births experiencing neonatal difficulties (premature birth, low birth weight, or low five-minute Apgar score), (2) percent of births to mothers less than 20 years old, (3) percent of births to mothers who smoked or drank alcohol during pregnancy, (4) percent of births to Medicaid beneficiaries, (5) percent of births having three or more siblings, and (6) percent of births to non-married mothers, as well as six risk variables in the exosystem: (1) percentage of single parent families with children under six years old, (2) percentage of females 16 and older (with children under six years old) in the labor force outside the home, (3) percentage of families living in the current residence less than one year, (4) percentage of single-family housing units, (5) percentage of vacant housing units, and (6) percentage of males and females 16 years and older in the labor force who are unemployed. The microsystem variables reflected the

variables were chosen to indicate inadequate social support from the community, and the last variable to indicate socioeconomic resource stress. The hypothesis was that the rates of substantiated neglect and of substantiated physical/emotional abuse were positively related to the risk variables. The hypothesis was first examined through visual analyses including reviewing maps and investigating scatter plots, and then tested using spatial regression methods, which controlled for the effect of spatial autocorrelation.

Findings from visual analyses of maltreatment rates in relation to three variables: percentage of females 16 years and older (with children under six years old) in the labor force outside the home, percentage of families living in the current residence less than one year, and percentage of single-family housing units did not support the hypothesis. Neither the first nor the second variable was related to the rates of either type of maltreatment. The third variable was related to the rates of both types, but the

relationships were opposite to the hypothesized direction. These three variables were dropped from the regression analysis.

Findings from bivariate spatial regression analyses of the transformed rates of substantiated neglect on nine risk variables supported the hypothesis: the transformed rates of substantiated neglect were significantly, positively related to each of the nine variables. The top four variables that give smaller AIC values are: percent of births to Medicaid beneficiaries, percent of births to non-married mothers, percentage of males and females 16 years and older in the labor force who are unemployed, and percent of births to mothers less than 20 years old.

Bivariate spatial regression analyses of the transformed rates of substantiated physical/emotional abuse on nine risk variables suggested that the transformed rates of substantiated physical/emotional abuse were significantly, positively related to seven explanatory variables at least at the 0.05 level, but not related to the other two variables: percent of births to Medicaid beneficiaries and percentage of single parent families with children under six years old. The top four variables that give smaller AIC values are: percent of births to mothers who smoked or drank alcohol during pregnancy, percent of births having three or more siblings, percentage of vacant housing units, and percent of births to non-married mothers.

Four variables, percent of births to non-married mothers, percentage of males and females 16 years and older in the labor force who are unemployed, percent of births to mothers who smoked or drank alcohol during pregnancy, and percentage of single parent families with children under six years old, were identified through multivariate spatial regression as the set of independent variables that best predicted the transformed rates of substantiated neglect. All four variables were significantly contributive. The model had a moderate predictive ability. The set of independent variables that best predicted the transformed rates of substantiated physical/emotional abuse included single variable: percent of births to mothers who smoked or drank alcohol during pregnancy. The model had a low predictive ability. Variable “percent of births to mothers who smoked or drank alcohol during pregnancy” was the only variable that was significantly predictive of the rates of substantiated neglect and the rates of substantiated physical/emotional abuse.

Comparisons of the above findings suggested that the relationships between substantiated maltreatment rates and the examined risk variables differed by type of

predicted the rates of substantiated maltreatment differed by type of maltreatment. Spatial autocorrelation effects were found statistically significant in the OLS residuals of both bivariate and multivariate regression models. Results of this study supported the idea that when spatial autocorrelation is present in the OLS regression residuals, the absolute values of the test statistic are upward biased. The relationships of the transformed rates of substantiated physical/emotional abuse to two variables, percent of births to Medicaid beneficiaries and percentage of single parent families with children under six years old, were found significant in the bivariate OLS regression models but not significant in the bivariate spatial regression models. Similarly, the transformed rates of substantiated physical/emotional abuse were found significantly related to two

variables, percent of births to non-married mothers and percentage of vacant housing units, in the multivariate OLS regression; but the relationships were found not significant in the multivariate spatial regression.