Fathers and Risk for Physical Child Maltreatment: Prevention Pathways

Columbia Univ New York Morningside, New York NY

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Despite the fact that fathers and father surrogates are disproportionately represented as perpetrators in the[unreadable] most severe and sometimes fatal incidents of physical abuse and neglect, little is known about their specific[unreadable] role in the etiology of physical child abuse and neglect, hindering prevention efforts. The proposed study will[unreadable] conduct a series of interrelated analyses that will isolate the fathering pathways that shape a family's risk for[unreadable] physical child abuse and neglect, drawing data from a national prospective longitudinal population-based[unreadable] birth cohort of families across 20 U. S. cities (N=4,800 at baseline). The design of this study provides unique[unreadable] opportunities as it draws from a nationally representative, rather than local problem-based, sample, and[unreadable] permits the identification of fathering factors prospectively before any maltreatment has occurred, from birth[unreadable] through three years of age, the period of children's greatest vulnerability to the most severe forms of physical[unreadable] child abuse and neglect. Self-report and in-home observational data on physical child abuse and neglect risk[unreadable] and predictors were collected from both mothers and fathers, and include data on father surrogates, permitting[unreadable] in-depth examination in corroboration and comparison across informants. Four interrelated substudies are[unreadable] proposed that will examine fathers' and father surrogates' roles in a longitudinal fashion across levels of[unreadable] concern (i. e. community, parent subsystem, parent-child interaction), progressing from: 1) multivariate[unreadable] regression analyses that control for maternal and other background factors to identify unique fathering[unreadable] predictors linked to physical child abuse and neglect risk; 2) path analyses that trace the important fatherrelated[unreadable] direct and mediating pathways shaping both mothers and fathers risk for physical child abuse and[unreadable] neglect; 3) analyses of community factors as they are related to the parenting subsystem and shape individuallevel[unreadable] fathering factors related to physical child abuse and neglect risk; and 4) multivariate regression analyses :that include non-biological father-figures as well as fathers and use longitudinal data to examine pathways to[unreadable] risk. Given differing etiological processes, father-related factors will be examined differentially in their[unreadable] capacity to predict young children's risk for exposure to physical child abuse as contrasted with physical child[unreadable] neglect. Findings from this study will provide scientific information that identifies specific modifiable fatherrelated[unreadable] pathways linked with maltreatment risk promoting the development of preventive interventions that[unreadable] alter parent-child interactions away from physical child abuse and neglect risk.