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Hispanic immigrant children less likely to experience adverse events
Although poverty is more prevalent in Hispanic immigrant families, immigrant children are much less likely to experience adverse childhood events — including abuse, violence exposure and family dysfunction — when compared with Hispanic children from United States-native families, according to a study published in Pediatrics.
“Adverse childhood events disproportionately affect low-income children who are already at risk for poor long-term health secondary to poverty,” Tania Maria Caballero, MD, MHS, from the division of general pediatrics and adolescent medicine in the school of medicine in the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, and colleagues wrote. “However, parent-reported ACE exposure among Hispanic children is lower than among African American children, despite similarly high rates of childhood poverty.”
To assess the frequency in which child and family characteristics related to ACEs occur in Hispanic children from immigrant families and U.S.-native families, the researchers conducted a study in which nationally representative data were collected from the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health regarding parent-reported child ACE exposure. All participants were classified into three groups: no exposure (n = 0), low ACEs (n = 1) or high ACEs (n ≥ 2).
The chance of exposure to adverse events was calculated using multinomial logistic regression for low or high exposure as opposed to no exposure. Immigrant family status, insurance status, child health status and household-to-income ratio were also considered.
Of the 12,162 Hispanic children included in the study, those who were a part of immigrant families were more likely to live at or under 200% of the federal poverty level when compared with U.S.-native families (80% vs. 47%; P < .001). Children from U.S.-native families had greater rates of high ACEs than those from immigrant families (30% vs. 16%; P < .001).
The probability of high ACE exposure compared with no ACE exposure for immigrant families vs. U.S.-native families was 0.46 (95% CI: 0.34-0.61), and characteristics such as insurance status and child health status did not provide sufficient explanation for these differences regarding immigrant status.
“When parents are resilient to their circumstances, they may be better able to buffer the effects of negative exposures on their children. When youth are grounded in their cultural identities, they may be better able to thrive in the face of stressors,” Caballero and colleagues wrote. “The authors of emerging studies are responding to the need to account for some of these important factors by proposing an expansion of adversity scale domains to include questions about family strengths, cultural values, child self-regulation and parental skills.” – by Katherine Bortz
Disclosure: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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