Harmful Effect of Child Maltreatment on Economic Outcomes in Adulthood

• NCJ Number: 252883
• Journal: American Journal of Public Health Volume: 108 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2018 Pages: 1134-1141
• Author(s): Kimberly L. Henry; Celia J. Fulco; Melissa T. Merrick
• Date Published: September 2018
• Length: 8 pages
• Grant Number(s): 86-JN-CX0007, 96-MU-FX-0014, 2004-MU-FX-0062
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical); Report (Study/Research); Report (Grant Sponsored); Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined the effect of maltreatment during childhood on subsequent financial strain during adulthood and the extent to which this effect was mediated by adolescent depressive symptoms, adolescent substance abuse, attenuated educational achievement, and timing of first birth.

Abstract

A multilevel path model was used to examine the developmental cascade of child maltreatment. Data were used from a longitudinal panel study of 496 parents participating in the Rochester Intergenerational Study in Rochester, New York. Data were collected between 1988 and 2016. The study found that child maltreatment had both a direct and indirect (via the mediators) effect on greater financial strain during adulthood. The study concludes that maltreatment has the capacity to disrupt healthy development during adolescence and early adulthood and puts the affected individual at risk for economic difficulties later in life. Maltreatment is a key social determinant for health and prosperity, and initiatives to prevent maltreatment and provide mental health and social services to victims are critical. Thus, the ecology of an individual's childhood has the capacity to foster or hinder adaptive development over the life course. This notion is a primary premise of the American Academy of Sciences' ecobiodevelopmental model, a framework designed to elucidate the interplay of childhood ecology (i.e., the environmental and social contexts that the child navigates), biology (including genetics and neurodevelopment), and long-term prosperity in terms of mental, physical, social, and economic well-being. Recently, the ecobiodevelopmental framework has been used to explain the consequences of child maltreatment, a trauma that can lead to toxic stress and ensuing health risk behaviors (e.g., substance abuse, poor eating and exercise habits, risky sexual behaviors), and ultimately poor mental and physical health (e.g., depression and cardiovascular disease).1-3 Indeed, child maltreatment's ill effect on health outcomes can be far reaching, long lasting, and profound. (publisher abstract modified)