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A lack of affordable housing is a pressing issue for many low-income American families and can lead to eviction from their homes. Housing assistance programs to address this problem include public housing and other assistance, including vouchers, through which a government agency offsets the cost of private market housing. This paper assesses whether the receipt of either category of assistance reduces the probability that a family will be evicted from their home in the subsequent six years. Because no randomized trial has assessed these effects, we use observational data and formalize the conditions under which a causal interpretation is warranted. Families living in public housing experience less eviction conditional on pre-treatment variables. We argue that this evidence points toward a causal conclusion that assistance, particularly public housing, protects families from eviction.

Purpose To assess whether childhood exposure to violent contexts is prospectively associated with risky adolescent health behavior and whether these associations are specific to different contexts of violence and different types of risky behavior. Methods Data come from 2,684 adolescents in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a population-based birth cohort study of children born between 1998 and 2000 in 20 large American cities. Using logistic regression models, we evaluate whether exposure to 6 indicators of community violence and 7 indicators of family violence at ages 5 and 9 is associated with risky sexual behavior, substance use, and obesity risk behavior at age 15. Results Controlling for a range of adolescent, parent, and neighborhood covariates, each additional point on the community violence scale is associated with 8% higher odds of risky sexual behavior but not substance use or obesity risk behavior. Alternatively, each additional point on the family violence scale is associated with 20% higher odds of substance use but not risky sexual behavior or obesity risk behavior. Conclusions Childhood exposure to violent contexts is associated with risky adolescent health behaviors, but the associations are context and behavior specific. After including covariates, we find no association between childhood exposure to violent contexts and obesity risk behavior.

Recent research by Chetty and colleagues finds that children's chances of upward mobility are affected by the communities in which they grow up [Chetty R, Hendren N (2016) Working paper 23002]. However, the developmental pathways through which communities of origin translate into future economic gain are not well understood. In this paper we examine the association between Chetty and Hendren's county-level measure of intergenerational mobility and children's cognitive and behavioral development. Focusing on children from low-income families, we find that growing up in a county with high upward mobility is associated with fewer externalizing behavioral problems by age 3 years and with substantial gains in cognitive test scores between ages 3 and 9 years. Growing up in a county with 1 SD better intergenerational mobility accounts for ∼20% of the gap in developmental outcomes between children from low- and high-income families. Collectively, our findings suggest that the developmental processes through which residential contexts promote upward mobility begin early in childhood and involve the enrichment of both cognitive and social-emotional development.

Adolescent mental health problems are associated with poor health and well-being in adulthood. We used data from a cohort of 2,264 children born in large US cities in 1998-2000 to examine whether neighborhood collective efficacy (a combination of social cohesion and control) is associated with improvements in adolescent mental health. We found that children who grew up in neighborhoods with high collective efficacy experienced fewer depressive and anxiety symptoms during adolescence than similar children from neighborhoods with low collective efficacy. The magnitude of this neighborhood effect is comparable to the protective effects of depression prevention programs aimed at general or at-risk adolescent populations. Our findings did not vary by family or neighborhood income, which indicates that neighborhood collective efficacy supports adolescent mental health across diverse populations and urban settings. We recommend a greater emphasis on neighborhood environments in individual mental health risk assessments and greater investment in community-based initiatives that strengthen neighborhood social cohesion and control.

A growing body of research suggests that housing eviction is more common than previously recognized and may play an important role in the reproduction of poverty. The proportion of children affected by housing eviction, however, remains largely unknown. We estimate that one in seven children born in large U.S. cities in 1998–2000 experienced at least one eviction for nonpayment of rent or mortgage between birth and age 15. Rates of eviction were substantial across all cities and demographic groups studied, but children from disadvantaged backgrounds were most likely to experience eviction. Among those born into deep poverty, we estimate that approximately one in four were evicted by age 15. Given prior evidence that forced moves have negative consequences for children, we conclude that the high prevalence and social stratification of housing eviction are sufficient to play an important role in the reproduction of poverty and warrant greater policy attention.

Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for children age 1 and older in the United States and is responsible for more child mortality than all diseases combined (Borse et al., 2008). The child injury death rate in the United States ranks as one of the worst among higher income countries and is approximately four times higher than countries with the lowest rates ("Vital Signs," 2012). One in four children annually have an injury that requires medical treatment or results in restricted activity, with an estimated cost of $17 billion per year (Danseco, Miller, & Spicer, 2000; Scheidt et al., 1995). Unlike older children, young children are most likely to be injured in the home where parents and other caregivers are present (Scheidt et al., 1995). As a result, parental supervision has been identified as one of the most important determinants of injury risk for younger children. However, research in this area has focused primarily on the role of mothers in injury prevention, with only a handful of studies examining the role of fathers (Morrongiello, 2005; Morrongiello, Ondejko, & Littlejohn, 2004; Morrongiello & Schell, 2010).Demographic and cultural shifts over the past several decades have tremendously influenced family life in the United States. As mothers have increased their time in the labor force, fathers (particularly married fathers) now spend substantially more time taking care of children than in the past (Pew Research Center, 2013). At the same time, more children are spending time in nontraditional family living arrangements. Because of high rates of marital dissolution, instability within nonmarital relationships, and nonmarital childbearing in the United States (41% in 2010), half of all children will spend some time in a single-parent family (Kennedy & Bumpass, 2008; Martin et al., 2015), and one third of all children will spend time in a family with a biological parent and a residential nonbiological parent (Coleman, Ganong, & Fine, 2000). Because most children continue to live withtheirmothersafterparentalseparation(U.S. Census Bureau, 2012), these statistics suggest that children will be involved with a variety of different "father figures" in their lives, including resident biological fathers, nonresident biological fathers, and mothers' new married or cohabiting partners (from here on referred to as resident social fathers). Very little is known about the role of fathers in child injury risk, and scholars have identified this area as a major gap in the research (Morrongiello & Schwebel, 2008). Given the diversity of children's living arrangements and the importance of injuries in the health profiles of young children, it is important to understand how children's involvement with different types of father figures is associated with injury. In this study we examined the role of resident biological fathers, nonresident biological fathers, and resident social fathers in the risk of injury for children from birth to age 5.Fathers and Child InjuryFathers can be involved with children in many different ways. In this study, we considered three dimensions of father involvement: (a) fathers' residential status vis a vis children, (b) fathers' engagement with children in various activities, and (c) the degree to which fathers cooperate in parenting practices with mothers. Below, we describe the mechanisms through which each of these dimensions of involvement could affect child injuries and suggest how effects could differ by fathers' residential status, biological link to the child, and the child's stage of development.Residential StatusOne of the most basic forms of fathers' involvement is their physical presence in the child's household. As mentioned above, half of children will spend time in a single-parent family, most often with their mother. By definition, children in single-parent families have less access to parental time and material resources than do children in two-parent families (Thomson, Hanson, & McLanahan, 1994; U. …

The implicit curriculum, which refers to a student’s learning environment, has been described as an essential feature of an integrated professional social work curriculum. Very little is known, however, about the heterogeneity of students’ experiences with the implicit curriculum, how this heterogeneity may be distributed across groups of students, and how it may impact students’ professional empowerment. This study used latent profile analysis to identify groups of students based on their experiences with the implicit curriculum in school and field contexts, and it examined differences between profile groups on measures of professional empowerment. Study participants (n = 534) were undergraduate and graduate students of a large school of social work in the northeast. Results revealed that four groups of students could be identified based on their experiences with the implicit curriculum: students who experienced (a) positive school and field environments, (b) positive school but negative field environmen...

In this study, we use nationally representative data from the U.S. Current Population Survey-Child Support Supplement (N = 28,047) to examine differences in nonresident fathers’ material contributions between children of native and foreign-born mothers. We focus on contributions provided through the formal child support system (whether the mother has a child support agreement and the amount received), as well as support provided informally (the amount of informal cash and whether she receives any in-kind support). We control for a variety of individual and household characteristics, including whether the nonresident father lives in a different state or in a different country. We find that foreign-born mothers are much less likely to have a child support agreement than native-born mothers, but have similar amounts of formal support, once an agreement is in place. Compared to native-born mothers, foreign-born mothers are also much less likely to receive in-kind support, but this difference is completely explained by fathers’ distance from the child. Foreign-born mothers do not differ at all on the amount of informal cash support received from fathers. Nonresident fathers’ residence outside the U.S. is an important mechanism through which nativity affects the likelihood of having a child support order and receiving any in-kind support, but not the amount of formal support (given an order) or the amount of informal cash support. Aggregate comparisons mask important differences within the foreign-born group by mothers’ and children’s citizenship status, years in the U.S., and region of origin.