The relationship between early maltreatment and teenage parenthood.

In a longitudinal study of the effects of early childhood maltreatment, 92 adolescents who had become parents while under 20 years of age were compared to 297 adolescents who had not become parents during their teenage years. Preschool and school-age physical abuse alone and in combination with neglect were found to have significant relationships with teenage parenthood. Low self-esteem, as evaluated by elementary school teachers, was related to both early maltreatment and teenage parenthood. Sexual abuse, based on retrospective reports of the adolescents, had a significant but weaker relationship to teenage parenthood. The implications of these findings and the findings that high school dropout, assaultive behavior, and drug use are also related to teenage parenthood are discussed.

Preschool antecedents of adolescent assaultive behavior: a longitudinal study.

A 16-year longitudinal study followed preschool maltreated and nonmal-treated children to identify their involvement in assaultive behavior as adolescents. Severity of physical discipline, negative quality of the mother's interaction with the child, and the experience of sexual abuse were related to adolescent assaultive behavior.

Alar and apples: newspapers, risk and media responsibility.

During 1989, a major environmental and health risk issue, the spraying of Alar on apples, created a furor among the American people. After hearing charges from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) that eating Alar-laden apples significantly increased a child's risk of developing cancer, numbers of school districts dropped apples from their menus and parents poured apple juice down the drains. Apple sales plummeted. The NRDC's charges, which were disseminated by a well-planned and effective public relations campaign, brought counter-charges from the US environmental Protection Agency, which accused the NRDC of basing its study on poor data, among other things. The core of the dispute was in the risk figures and risk interpretations being used by each organization.

Risk factors for behavioral dysfunction: the relative impact of maltreatment, SES, physical health problems, cognitive ability, and quality of parent-child interaction.

An analysis to identify risks for behavioral dysfunction is described in which maltreatment is viewed as one of multiple factors putting behavioral outcome at risk. Based on a study of physically abused and neglected, and nonabused, non-neglected children (n = 206) assessed at two points in time--preschool age and school age--variables representative of several domains (parenting, family environment, and child characteristics) were identified as significantly affecting children's behavioral functioning. Based on teachers' ratings, the children were assigned to one of three groups: high, medium, and low functioning. Discriminant analysis was used to determine which factors discriminated among the three groups. Results indicated that behavioral functioning is most strongly differentiated by the sociocultural and family climate in which the child is raised with physical and emotional maltreatment being significant but less powerful influences.

Community social change and mortality.

This paper first reviews the types of explanations that have been used in analyzing unequal distribution in coronary heart disease among different groups and changes in prevalence over time. The explanations have mostly focused on the individual: individual behaviors, personalities, stressors, or social ties. It is suggested here that a shift in focus to community-level characteristics may also aid in understanding changes in mortality. Data are presented from Roseto, PA--a town that became known in the 1960's for its strong Italian traditions and very low mortality from myocardial infarction and that subsequently experienced a sharp rise in mortality--and from the adjacent comparison town of Bangor. Data collected over several decades--in some cases as far back as 1925--on marriages, population composition, organizational memberships, voting patterns, and social class indicators suggest that important community changes that accelerated significantly in the 1960's coincided with and may help to explain Roseto's loss of protection from coronary heart disease deaths after 1965.