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Neighborhood Risk Predicts Anxiety in Head Start Preschoolers via Maternal Psychopathology

Thu, March 21, 4:00 to 5:30pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 3, Room 313

Integrative Statement

Developmental pathways to anxiety symptoms and disorders in childhood are complex. Early risk for anxiety symptom development is often studied in a temperament framework, whereby fearful temperament emerges as a robust predictor (Chronis-Toscano et al., 2009; Buss et al., 2013). In addition, a large body of work points to increased risk for anxiety in children of anxious and depressed mothers (Hirshfeld-Becker et al., 2008; Biederman et al., 2007), and in the context of overprotective or harsh parenting styles (Kiel, Premo, & Buss, 2015). However, research in early childhood highlighting temperamental risk, familial risk, parent psychopathology, and parenting styles that dominates the literature and focuses is almost exclusively on low-risk families. Conversely, research with older children and adolescents examines environmental risks, such as poverty and exposure to community violence as risk factors for anxiety. One notable exception exists; with a low-income sample, McDoniel (2017) found that fearful temperament was unrelated to the development of anxiety symptoms. Therefore, the question motivating the current study is how these child and parent individual risk factors and parenting may operate in high-risk environments.

For the current study, we used a community-engaged approach to recruit families (n = 51) of 3- and 4-year-olds (63% female; 63% African American/Black, 17% multiethnic/multiracial, 9% White and 8% Hispanic; 58% below $15,000) from two Head Start schools in a small, mid-Atlantic city. Schools were located in underserved, high risk areas (e.g., poverty and crime) within this community.

Mothers reported on neighborhood characteristics (ISPCR-Community Survey), self-reported anxiety and depressive symptoms (CES-D, BAI), and child internalizing/anxious behaviors (CBCL). Mothers reported high levels of anxiety. Using cutoffs consistent with clinical range scores, mother reports revealed that 45% of children scored above threshold for separation anxiety, 18% for social anxiety, and 10% for school anxiety/avoidance. Also, we examined relations between neighborhood violence and maternal psychopathology, and child symptoms. Neighborhood violence was associated with maternal anxiety (r = .33, p < .05), maternal depression (r = .39, p < .05), and child anxiety/internalizing (r = .29/.31, p’s < .05).

Next, we tested the hypothesis that neighborhood risk (i.e., crime) would be associated with child anxiety/internalizing via maternal anxiety and depressive symptoms. Examining maternal anxiety and depression in separate models (Figure 1), we found indirect effects of neighborhood risk on child anxiety through maternal anxiety, effect = 0.09, 95% CI [0.01, 0.22] and on child internalizing symptoms through maternal depression, effect = 0.10, 95% CI [0.03, 0.20]. Interestingly, when both symptoms were entered as mediators, only parental anxiety remained as a significant indirect effect of neighborhood risk on child internalizing symptoms, effect = 0.02, 95% CI [0.003, 0.06].

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