SSW Faculty members Charlotte Bright, Haksoon Ahn, and Terry Shaw along with others published “Neighborhood disorder and child behavioral problems among kinship children: Mediated by social support and moderated by race/ethnicity” in Child Abuse and Neglect.
Abstract: Children in kinship care may be placed in similar neighborhoods as their birth families, which are predominantly characterized as distressed neighborhoods with high poverty and crime rates, poor-quality housing conditions, and few social resources. Disordered neighborhoods are negatively correlated to social support, but this dynamic may vary by race or ethnicity. However, children's previously established attachment and social bonding may offset the negative effects of distressed neighborhoods on child behavioral health. Objectives: This study examined the relation between neighborhood disorder and children's internalizing and externalizing problems among children in kinship care and tested caregivers' social support as a potential mediator. Moreover, this study examined if race/ethnicity moderated the pathway from neighborhood disorder to social support, and from social support to children's internalizing and externalizing problems. Xu, Y., Bright, C.L., Huang, H., Ahn, H., Shaw, T.V. (2020), Neighborhood disorder and child behavioral problems among kinship children: Mediated by social support and moderated by race/ethnicity? Child Abuse and Neglect, doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104483