Maternal Depressive Symptoms, Children's Development, and Early Care and Education Among Black Families

• In Event: Understanding and Promoting Black Children's Positive Development: Researchers Investigating Sociocultural Equity and Race Network

Abstract

Objectives/purposes
Despite the threat of maternal depressive symptoms to healthy development (Center on the Developing Child, 2009) and the disparate rates of maternal depressive symptoms among Black families (Howell et al., 2005), little is known about links between maternal depressive symptoms and children’s development specifically among Black families. It is important to determine how maternal depressive symptoms may be implicated in children’s functioning among Black families in particular. Further, it is plausible that early care and education (ECE) may serve as a buffer against the deleterious effects of maternal depressive symptoms for Black children (Goelman et al., 2014; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2002). Therefore, this paper considers (1) the burden of maternal depressive symptoms among Black mothers; (2) links between maternal depressive symptoms and children’s development among Black families and (3) whether ECE may play a compensatory role in these links.

Perspective(s)/theoretical framework:
This study is informed by life course models of human development (Elder et al., 2003), bioecological theories of human development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998; Sameroff & Fiese, 2000), and the integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children (García Coll et al., 1996).

Data sources/evidence/objects/materials:
This paper employs a subsample of 1,100[1] Black families from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a nationally representative study of a cohort of approximately 10,700 children born in the United States in the year 2001 (Flanagan & West, 2004).

Methods/techniques/modes of inquiry:
Measures of Children’s school readiness and well-being, maternal depressive symptoms, characteristics of ECE settings, and covariates were drawn from ECLS-B. Research procedures were approved by the IRB at [NameBlinded].

Quantitative analyses of secondary data include no constant regression analyses to test for differences in depressive symptomology and intensity across different meaningful characteristics (e.g., SES, immigrant status); propensity score weighting techniques (PSW) to consider associations between maternal depressive symptoms and children’s functioning (Imbens, 2000); and moderation analyses to assess the attenuating role of ECE in links between maternal depressive symptoms and children’s development.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions:
In order to provide richer detail about the heterogeneity of experiences of maternal depressive symptoms among Black mothers in the United States, initial analyses suggest differences in levels of depressive symptoms among Black mothers across different meaningful characteristics. For example, Black immigrant mothers reported lower levels of depressive symptoms than their native-born peers. Additional analyses will consider links between symptoms and children’s outcomes, as well as the attenuating role of ECE in these links.

Scientific/scholarly significance:
This paper will contribute to the need for research on variability within the Black population as opposed to only comparative approaches with racial majority groups. Additionally, results may lead to future ideas for experimental manipulation of maternal depressive symptoms impacts through ECE and health services, and may lead to future policy and practice recommendations regarding ECE, coordination across educators and health practitioners, and the well-being of Black families and children.

[1] ELCS-B secure data restrictions require that all Ns be rounded to the nearest 50.

Authors

• Jacqueline Sims, Boston University

• Stephanie Michelle Curenton, Boston University

• Rebekah Levine Coley, Boston College