The familial and behavioral antecedents of children's injuries
Mott, Joshua Adam
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/21672
Description
Title
The familial and behavioral antecedents of children's injuries
Author(s)
Mott, Joshua Adam
Issue Date
1996
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Rubinson, Laurna
Department of Study
Kinesiology and Community Health
Discipline
Community Health
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Health Sciences, Public Health
Psychology, Developmental
Sociology, Individual and Family Studies
Language
eng
Abstract
This research uses a national longitudinal sample of children (the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth) to make two new contributions to our understanding of the antecedents of children's injuries. First, it employs path analysis to examine both family and behavioral influences on injuries, factors which have previously been analyzed separately, within the context of each other. Second, it employs event-history techniques to identify risk factors that may operate only at specific ages in childhood.
Measures of the dependent variable are based on retrospective maternal reports. Injuries requiring any medical attention (including hospitalization) and those requiring hospitalization were analyzed separately. Family environmental variables tap issues of family structure, socio-economic status and maternal job satisfaction, the quality of parent-child interaction, the home physical environment, maternal health and maternal behaviors prior to the birth of the child. Children's externalizing, injury-related, behaviors are measured using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL).
"This study finds that, especially in middle childhood, externalizing behaviors were predictive of children's injuries. Externalizing behavior played a stronger role in the etiology of boys' injuries than girls' injuries, confirming prior work. This may, in part, explain gender differences in risk. As expected, but not previously documented, strongest relationships between the family environment and children's injuries that existed independent of externalizing behavior appeared at younger ages. Consistent with child developmental theory, cognitive and emotional family support contributed to ""safe"" behavioral development in children. This was found to be the case at all ages."
As found in prior work, having one or more injuries in a given year was predictive of injuries in subsequent years. However, the pattern of repeating injuries disappeared with the addition of multivariate controls. This new finding suggests that persisting familial and behavioral factors may largely account for injury repetition in children.
This research points to useful avenues for future research by concluding that: (1) viewing childhood in broad age groupings masks meaningful variation in the timing and patterning of risk, and, (2) models designed to explain externalizing behavior in children also provide a useful framework for examining children's injuries.
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