Abstract
Currently, little is known about patterns of co-occurring risk and protective factors among young children. Understanding variations in co-occurring risk and protective factors among children in Alaska is important as experiences of collective trauma may contribute to differences in the intersection of risk and protective factors between Alaska Native/American Indian (AN/AI) and non-Native children. Using data from the Alaska Longitudinal Child Abuse and Neglect Linkage (ALCANLink) project, a linkage of the 2009–2011 Alaska Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System survey and administrative data sources, and the 2012–2014 Childhood Understanding Behaviors Survey, we conducted latent class analysis to identify classes of AN/AI (N = 593) and non-Native (N = 1018) children in terms of seven risk factors (poverty, maternal depression, maternal binge drinking, parental incarceration, intimate partner violence exposure, other violence exposure, child maltreatment) and four protective factors (father figure involvement, reading by adults, family meals, peer interactions) experienced prior to age 3 years. We identified two classes among AN/AI children: (1) high risk-moderate protection (29.1%) and (2) low socioeconomic status-high protection (70.9%). We identified two classes among non-Native children: (1) moderate risk-high protection (32.9%) and (2) low risk-high protection (67.1%). A test of invariance revealed that risk and protective factor probabilities differed significantly for corresponding classes of AN/AI and non-Native children. Overall, results demonstrate heterogeneity within and between AN/AI and non-Native children in early experiences of risk and protection and suggest that interventions will be more effective if tailored to the experiences and developmental needs of specific groups of Alaska children.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. (2015). Alaska childhood understanding behaviors survey. Retrieved from http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/wcfh/Pages/mchepi/cubs/default.aspx
Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. (2018). Cultural resources for Alaskan families: Traditional health and wellness guide. Retrieved from http://dhss.alaska.gov/ocs/Documents/Publications/pdf/CulturalResourcesGuide.pdf
Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce. (2018). Current Alaska population overview. Retrieved from http://live.laborstats.alaska.gov/pop/popestpub.cfm
Bitsko, R. H. (2016). Health care, family, and community factors associated with mental, behavioral, and developmental disorders in early childhood—United States, 2011–2012. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 65(9), 221–226.
Braveman, P., & Barclay, C. (2009). Health disparities beginning in childhood: A life-course perspective. Pediatrics, 124(3), 163–175.
Burchinal, M. R., Roberts, J. E., Hooper, S., & Zeisel, S. A. (2000). Cumulative risk and early cognitive development: A comparison of statistical risk models. Developmental Psychology, 36(6), 793–807.
Castaneda, M. J. (May 14, 2018.). [Elder and youth program manage, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.]
Cavanaugh, C. E., Petras, H., & Martins, S. S. (2015). Gender-specific profiles of adverse childhood experiences, past year mental and substance use disorders, and their associations among a national sample of adults in the United States. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 50(8), 1257–1266.
Chaudry, A., & Wimer, C. (2016). Poverty is not just an indicator: The relationship between income, poverty, and child well-being. Academic Pediatrics, 16(3), 23–29.
Collins, L. M., & Lanza, S. T. (2013). Latent class and latent transition analysis: With applications in the social, behavioral, and health sciences (Vol. 718). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Cprek, S. E., Williams, C. M., Asaolu, I., Alexander, L. A., & Vanderpool, R. C. (2015). Three positive parenting practices and their correlation with risk of childhood developmental, social, or behavioral delays: An analysis of the National Survey of Children’s Health. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 19(11), 2403–2411.
Drake, B., Jolley, J. M., Lanier, P., et al. (2011). Racial bias in child protection? A comparison of competing explanations using national data. Pediatrics, 127(3), 471–478.
Driscoll, D., Dotterrer, B., Miller, J., & Voorhees, H. (2010). Assessing the influence of health on rural outmigration in Alaska. International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 69(5), 528–544.
Duursma, E., Augustyn, M., & Zuckerman, B. (2008). Reading aloud to children: The evidence. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 93(7), 554–557.
Easley, C., Charles, G., La Bell, J., & Smith, S. L. (2005). Boarding school: Historical trauma among Alaska’s native people. Anchorage, AK: National Resource Center for American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Elders.
Eggum-Wilkens, N. D., Fabes, R. A., Castle, S., et al. (2014). Playing with others: Head start children’s peer play and relations with kindergarten school competence. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 29(3), 345–356.
Enders, C. K. (2010). Applied missing data analysis. New York City: Guilford Press.
Engle, J. M., McElwain, N. L., & Lasky, N. (2011). Presence and quality of kindergarten children's friendships: Concurrent and longitudinal associations with child adjustment in the early school years. Infant and Child Development, 20(4), 365–386.
Evans, G. W., Li, D., & Whipple, S. S. (2013). Cumulative risk and child development. Psychological Bulletin, 139(6), 1342–1396.
Evans-Campbell, T. (2008). Historical trauma in American Indian/Native Alaska communities: A multilevel framework for exploring impacts on individuals, families, and communities. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 23(3), 316–338.
Geller, A., Cooper, C. E., Garfinkel, I., Schwartz-Soicher, O., & Mincy, R. B. (2012). Beyond absenteeism: Father incarceration and child development. Demography, 49(1), 49–76.
Gilbert, R., Widom, C. S., Browne, K., et al. (2009). Burden and consequences of child maltreatment in high-income countries. Lancet, 373(9657), 68–81.
Grasso, D. J., Dierkhising, C. B., Branson, C. E., Ford, J. D., & Lee, R. (2016). Developmental patterns of adverse childhood experiences and current symptoms and impairment in youth referred for trauma-specific services. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 44(5), 871–886.
Holt, S., Buckley, H., & Whelan, S. (2008). The impact of exposure to domestic violence on children and young people: A review of the literature. Child Abuse & Neglect, 32(8), 797–820.
Hussey, J. M., Marshall, J. M., English, D. J., et al. (2005). Defining maltreatment according to substantiation: Distinction without a difference? Child Abuse & Neglect, 29(5), 479–492.
Kingston, D., & Tough, S. (2014). Prenatal and postnatal maternal mental health and school-age child development: A systematic review. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 18(7), 1728–1741.
Kitzmann, K. M., Gaylord, N. K., Holt, A. R., & Kenny, E. D. (2003). Child witnesses to domestic violence: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 71(2), 339–352.
Lee, J. K., & Schoppe-Sullivan, S. J. (2017). Resident fathers’ positive engagement, family poverty, and change in child behavior problems. Family Relations, 66(3), 484–496.
Magdanz, J. S., Greenberg, J., Little, J., & Koster, D. (2016). The persistence of subsistence: Wild food harvests in rural Alaska, 1983–2013. Social Science Research Network.
Mauer, M. (2011). Addressing racial disparities in incarceration. The Prison Journal, 91, 3.
McCutcheon, A. L. (1987). Latent class analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
McMunn, A., Martin, P., Kelly, Y., & Sacker, A. (2017). Fathers’ involvement: Correlates and consequences for child socioemotional behavior in the United Kingdom. Journal of Family Issues, 38(8), 1109–1131.
Menard, C. B., Bandeen-Roche, K. J., & Chilcoat, H. D. (2004). Epidemiology of multiple childhood traumatic events: Child abuse, parental psychopathology, and other family-level stressors. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 39(11), 857–865.
Mendelsohn, A. L., Cates, C. B., Weisleder, A., et al. (2018). Reading aloud, play, and social-emotional development. Pediatrics, 41(5), 1–11.
Naughton, A. M., Maguire, S. A., Mann, M. K., et al. (2013). Emotional, behavioral, and developmental features indicative of neglect or emotional abuse in preschool children: A systematic review. JAMA Pediatrics, 167(8), 769–775.
Parrish, J. W., Shanahan, M. E., Schnitzer, P. G., et al. (2017). Quantifying sources of bias in longitudinal data linkage studies of child abuse and neglect: Measuring impact of outcome specification, linkage error, and partial cohort follow up. Injury Epidemiology 4(23), 1–13.
Rhoades, B. L., Greenberg, M. T., Lanza, S. T., & Blair, C. (2011). Demographic and familial predictors of early executive function development: Contribution of a person-centered perspective. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108(3), 638–662.
Sanders, K. E., & Guerra, A. W. (2016). The culture of child care: Attachment, peers, and quality in diverse communities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sarche, M. C., Spicer, P., Farrell, P., & Fitzgerald, H. E. (2011). American Indian and Alaska native children and mental health: Development, context, prevention, and treatment.
Shah, R., Sobotka, S. A., Chen, Y.-F., & Msall, M. E. (2015). Positive parenting practices, health disparities, and developmental progress. Pediatrics, 136(3), 318–326.
Shonkoff, J. P., & Garner, A. S. (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), 232–246.
Solis, J., Shadur, J., Burns, A., & Hussong, A. (2012). Understanding the diverse needs of children whose parents abuse substances. Current Drug Abuse Reviews, 5(2), 135–147.
Tomopoulos, S., Dreyer, B. P., Tamis-LeMonda, C., et al. (2006). Books, toys, parent-child interaction, and development in young Latino children. Academic Pediatrics, 6(2), 72–78.
Turney, K. (2014). Stress proliferation across generations? Examining the relationship between parental incarceration and childhood health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 5555(3), 302–319.
United States Census Bureau. (2016). Poverty data tables. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty/data/tables.html
Van Ryzin, M. J., Kumpfer, K. L., Fosco, G. M., & Greenberg, M. T. (Eds.). (2015). Family based prevention programs for children and adolescents: Theory, research, and large-scale dissemination. London: Psychology Press.
Walls, M. L., Whitesell, N. R., Barlow, A., & Sarche, M. (2017). Research with American Indian and Alaska Native populations: Measurement matters. Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse 18(1), 129–149.
Zuckerman, S., Haley, J., Roubideaux, Y., & Lillie-Blanton, M. (2004). Health service access, and insurance coverage among American Indians/Alaska Natives and Whites: What role does the Indian Health Service play? American Journal of Public Health, 94(1), 53–59.
Acknowledgements
We would like to recognize the individuals who provided feedback on interpretation of results. We would like to thank Kathy Perham-Hester (Alaska PRAMS coordinator) and Margaret Young (Alaska CUBS coordinator). We would also like to thank staff from the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Alaska Office of Children’s Services, and Alaska Resilience Initiative. The findings reported herein were performed using data collected and maintained by the Alaska Division of Public Health. The opinions and conclusions expressed are solely those of the authors and should not be considered as representing the policy of any agency of the Alaska government.
Funding
Dr. Austin was supported by an award from the University of North Carolina Injury Prevention Research Center from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (R49 CE002479), a training grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Development (T32 HD52468), and a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (R40 MC30757). Dr. Gottfredson is supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (K01 DA035153).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Research Involving Human Participants or Animals
This study was reviewed and approved by the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Institutional (UNC) Review Board (IRB). All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed Consent
The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill IRB ruled that informed consent was not required given the use of secondary de-identified data.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Austin, A.E., Gottfredson, N.C., Marshall, S.W. et al. Heterogeneity in Risk and Protection Among Alaska Native/American Indian and Non-Native Children. Prev Sci 21, 86–97 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-019-01052-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-019-01052-y