Risk and Protective Factors for Partner Abuse, Child Maltreatment, & Suicidality

State University New York Stony Brook, Stony Brook NY

Investigators

Abstract

Partner abuse, child abuse and neglect, and suicidal behavior are costly occurrences in American society, in terms[unreadable] of both human suffering and economics. Healthy People 2010 targets all three problems for reduction. However,[unreadable] brevention of each of these areas is hampered by inadequate knowledge about the relative relations of risk and[unreadable] protective factors to the problems.[unreadable] The purpose of this project is to use a large (over 100,000 respondents), representative archival sample[unreadable] from 83 communities to provide effect sizes of risk factors at various levels (i.e., individual, family, work, and[unreadable] community), to test hypotheses about the buffering effects of protective factors, and use these results to create[unreadable] exploratory models of risk and resilience for these problems.[unreadable] The archival data set contains detailed assessments of suicidality, partner and child physical assaults and their[unreadable] impacts, partner and child emotional assaults and their impacts, and child neglectful omissions. We will test the effect[unreadable] sizes of risk factors using correlations, the buffering effects of protective factors using correlations and backward[unreadable] stepwise logistic and linear regressions, and overall models using structural equation modeling. We will use statistical[unreadable] packages that can appropriately estimate standard errors in a complex data set collected at 83 communities.[unreadable] Prevention science is guided by a five stage, recursive research cycle: (1) defining the problem and measuring its[unreadable] prevalence; (2) establishing risk and protective factor relations with the problem; (3) efficacy trials; (4) effectiveness[unreadable] trials; and (5) dissemination trials (Mrazek & Haggerty, 1994). Large gaps remain in the risk factor literature on all[unreadable] forms of partner abuse and child maltreatment (Slep & Heyman, 2001); very little is known at all about putative[unreadable] protective factor relations. Because this knowledge provides the bedrock on which to build effective prevention[unreadable] activities, reaching the Healthy People 2010 objectives is unlikely without improvements. This project is unique and[unreadable] innovative because (a) it is large enough to have very high power and low standard errors in its estimations of risk and[unreadable] protective factor effect sizes and additive effects; (b) it will examine risk and protective relations for injury as well as[unreadable] lower level behaviors (e.g., assault); (c) it will test these relations for partner and child physical abuse, partner and child[unreadable] emotional abuse, child neglectful omissions (lack of supervision and exposure to physical hazards), and suicidality; (d)[unreadable] it will examine risk and protective factors for comorbid conditions; and (e) it is large enough to examine these relations[unreadable] for children in different age groups.