African American-Black

Drawing on a sample of 318 African American and 354 Latino urban, low-income families, we identify maternal monitoring knowledge trajectories and examine which trajectory predicts fewer late-adolescent externalizing problems and which family and neighborhood factors predict trajectories with positive implications for lateadolescent externalizing behaviors. The majority of adolescents in both groups perceived long-term high levels of maternal monitoring knowledge throughout adolescence—stably high for the African American sample and high for the Latino sample.

Washington, DC, is a city of contrasts with respect to residents’ financial security. While some residents are among the country’s most financially secure, others find it hard to make ends meet. High housing costs, unequal opportunity, and economically segregated neighborhoods make it challenging for some residents to feel financially secure and to weather unexpected expenses and emergencies.

This paper examines the racial ecology of lead exposure as a form of environmental inequity, one with both historical and contemporary significance. Drawing on comprehensive data from over one million blood tests administered to Chicago children from 1995-2013 and matched to over 2300 geographic block groups, we address two major questions: (1) What is the nature of the relationship between neighborhood-level racial composition and variability in children’s elevated lead prevalence levels?

The purpose of this report is to describe recent trends in poverty in California. Throughout this report, we will feature a measure that is inspired by the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), as it improves on the Official Poverty Measure (OPM) in important ways. (Author abstract)

Purpose: The purposes of the study were to describe baseline data in the implementation of evidence-based clinical practices among health center partners as part of a community-wide teen pregnancy prevention initiative and to identify opportunities for health center improvement.

This mixed method study examined factors associated with parents not attending their child’s mental health treatment after initially seeking help for their 2–5 year old child. It was part of a larger study comparing two evidence-based treatments among low-income racial/ethnic minority families seeking child mental health services. Of 123 parents who initiated mental health treatment (71 % African American or multi-racial; 97.6 % low-income), 36 (29.3 %) never attended their child’s first treatment session.

A multimethod, multi-informant design was used to examine links among sociodemographic risk, family adversity, parenting quality, and child adjustment in families experiencing homelessness. Participants were 245 homeless parents (Mage = 31.0, 63.6% African American) and their 4- to 6-year-old children (48.6% male). Path analyses revealed unique associations by risk domain: Higher sociodemographic risk predicted more externalizing behavior and poorer teacher–child relationships, whereas higher family adversity predicted more internalizing behavior.

U.S. children are more likely to live apart from a biological parent than at any time in history. Although the Child Support Enforcement system has tremendous reach, its policies have not kept pace with significant economic, demographic, and cultural changes. Narrative analysis of in-depth interviews with 429 low-income noncustodial fathers suggests that the system faces a crisis of legitimacy. Visualization of language used to describe all forms child support show that the formal system is considered punitive and to lead to a loss of power and autonomy.

Although intensive early childhood interventions and high quality preschool programs have been shown to foster children's school readiness, little is known about the school readiness gains made by ethnically and linguistically diverse children in poverty receiving subsidies to attend center-based childcare or those in public school pre-kindergarten programs.

Importance  Low-income minority children living in urban neighborhoods are at high risk for mental health problems and underachievement. ParentCorps, a family-centered, school-based intervention in prekindergarten, improves parenting and school readiness (ie, self-regulation and preacademic skills) in 2 randomized clinical trials. The longer-term effect on child mental health and academic performance is not known.