AIMS:

Research has consistently shown that children of low socioeconomic status (SES) are at an increased risk for injury. However, the mechanisms of this association are not fully understood.

Factors such as poor parental supervision, behavioral problems in children, and unsafe housing have been associated with increased risk of injury. Prior studies using the ALSPAC data have found that various social and environmental characteristics such as living in a single parent home, parental depression, living in an unsafe neighborhood, and presence of safety hazards in home can contribute to injury in children four years of age and younger (1-3). Findings from Reading et al. indicate that individual characteristics of children and parents explain neighborhood clustering of injury rates (2), however, the degree to which these factors explain socioeconomic variation in injury is not fully understood.

The aim of the current study is to examine whether parental, child, and home environmental factors mediate the association between family socioeconomic status and injury in young and school aged children.

HYPOTHESIS:

It is hypothesized that child characteristics, parental characteristics, and quality of the home environment will mediate the association between socioeconomic status and injury.

EXPOSURE/MEDIATING VARIABLES:

Family income, housing characteristics (e.g., type of home, age of housing, home hazards, number of times the family has moved, neighborhood safety), parental/supervision factors (parental education level, general physical health, depression, alcohol use, exposure to traumatic events, size of family, marital status of parents), and child characteristics (age, gender, race/ethnicity, behavior/temperament).

OUTCOME VARIABLES:

Child accidents and injuries (types of injury, how/where occurred, severity of injury)