Original articleMore Than Poverty: The Effect of Child Abuse and Neglect on Teen Pregnancy Risk
Section snippets
Study sample
Data for this analysis were drawn from a larger longitudinal administrative data study that tracked a range of service system involvement and outcomes for children with histories of poverty or poverty and maltreatment during childhood. The larger study consisted of three groups of participants (one child randomly selected per family) born 1980–1994: those with a report of CAN, children with families who receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and children with both CAN and AFDC
Results
The final sample consisted of 3,281 young women; of whom, 1,343 (40.9%) had a history of poverty only, and 1938 (59.1%) had histories of both CAN and poverty. Among subjects with a history of at least one report of abuse or neglect, 28.9% had a record of at least one pregnancy from ages 10 to 17 years compared with 16.8% for the poverty only group. This difference remained significant in bivariate analyses controlling for time from birth to the end of the study period (see Table 1). Mean age at
Discussion
This study contributes to our understanding of why some youth continue to face higher pregnancy rates while the general population pregnancy rate declines. With a growing body of literature linking adversity in childhood to poor adult outcomes, studies such as this one that determines relative risks of adversity exposures are important. This study adds to the understanding of adolescent pregnancy risk by controlling for poverty as a confounder. The prospective data findings that even a single
Funding Sources
This study was supported by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CE001190) and National Institute of Mental Health (2R01 MH061733).
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2022, Children and Youth Services ReviewTrauma symptoms as factors associated with early motherhood among young women who had contact with child protective services
2021, Children and Youth Services ReviewCitation Excerpt :Adolescent girls involved with CPS and presenting clinical levels of trauma symptoms were up to seven times more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors than those without clinically significant trauma symptoms (Cavanaugh, 2013; Taussig & Talmi, 2001). A number of studies have demonstrated an association between the risk of early motherhood and the challenges associated with being a young woman who was in contact with CPS, such as childhood maltreatment, placement instability, or risky sexual behaviors (Font et al., 2019; Garwood et al., 2015; King, 2017; ; King & Van Wert, 2017; Noll et al., 2019; Noll & Shenk, 2013; Shpiegel, Cascardi, & Dineen, 2017). However, previous studies on early motherhood in young women who had contact with CPS have had some limitations.