| Alcohol
Availability, Alcohol Use, and Child Maltreatment
Principal
Investigator: Bridget Freisthler, Ph.D.
The
importance and role of alcohol in the etiology of child maltreatment
is still not well understood. Findings of studies on the effect
of parental alcoholism on child maltreatment are mixed and
inconclusive. Moreover, researchers have not examined through
what mechanism(s) physical availability of alcohol may affect
child maltreatment. By investigating how the physical availability
of alcohol affects child maltreatment, findings of the proposed
study will provide new information on the importance and role
of alcohol in the etiology of child maltreatment that moves
away from solely focusing on individual behaviors to environmental
conditions that may place children at elevated risk for physical
abuse and neglect.
This proposed study will go beyond previous research by (1)
investigating how level of alcohol use, not just alcohol abuse
or alcoholism, is related to committing child physical abuse
and neglect; (2) testing a conceptual model that examines
how alcohol use and the physical availability of alcohol may
be two pathways that lead to committing child physical abuse
and/or neglect; and (3) examining these relationships in a
nationally representative probability sample of young adult
parents. Thus, this study reduces the biases introduced when
specialized populations such as parents already in the child
welfare system and alcoholic parents are used. This study
will use interview data from young adult parents (n=2,427)
who participated in the third wave of National Longitudinal
Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) in 2002.
Findings
from this study will improve our understanding of the importance
and role of alcohol in the etiology of child maltreatment,
and will provide a theoretical and empirical basis for designing
effective prevention programs to reduce child maltreatment
and the individual and societal costs related to maltreatment.
This study also will yield a dataset with contextual factors
from the 2000 census and alcohol outlet density variables
that can be analyzed with Add Health interview data by other
investigators.
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