TY - JOUR
T1 - Neighborhood disadvantage alters the origins of children’s nonaggressive conduct problems
AU - Burt, S. Alexandra
AU - Klump, Kelly L.
AU - Gorman-Smith, Deborah
AU - Neiderhiser, Jenae M.
N1 - Funding Information:
This project was supported by Grant R01-MH081813 from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Grant R01-HD066040 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIMH, NICHD, or the National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2016.
PY - 2016/5
Y1 - 2016/5
N2 - Neighborhood disadvantage plays a pivotal role in child mental health, including child antisocial behavior (e.g., lying, theft, vandalism; assault, cruelty). Prior studies have indicated that shared environmental influences on youth antisocial behavior increase with increasing disadvantage, but researchers have been unable to confirm that these findings persist once various selection confounds are considered. In the current study, we sought to fill this gap in the literature by examining whether and how neighborhood disadvantage alters the genetic and environmental origins of child antisocial behavior. Our sample consisted of 2,054 child twins participating in the Michigan State University Twin Registry, half of whom were oversampled to reside in modestly-to-severely impoverished neighborhoods. We made use of an innovative set of nuclear twin family models, thereby allowing us to disambiguate between, and simultaneously estimate, multiple elements of the shared environment as well as genetic influences. Although there was no evidence that the etiology of aggressive antisocial behavior was moderated by neighborhood disadvantage, the etiology of nonaggressive antisocial behavior shifted dramatically with increasing neighborhood disadvantage. Sibling-level shared environmental influences were estimated to be near zero in the wealthiest neighborhoods and increased dramatically in the most impoverished neighborhoods. By contrast, both genetic risk and family-level shared environmental transmission were significantly more influential in middle- and upper-class neighborhoods than in impoverished neighborhoods. Such results collectively highlight the profound role that pervasive neighborhood poverty plays in shaping the etiology of child nonaggressive antisocial behavior. Implications are discussed.
AB - Neighborhood disadvantage plays a pivotal role in child mental health, including child antisocial behavior (e.g., lying, theft, vandalism; assault, cruelty). Prior studies have indicated that shared environmental influences on youth antisocial behavior increase with increasing disadvantage, but researchers have been unable to confirm that these findings persist once various selection confounds are considered. In the current study, we sought to fill this gap in the literature by examining whether and how neighborhood disadvantage alters the genetic and environmental origins of child antisocial behavior. Our sample consisted of 2,054 child twins participating in the Michigan State University Twin Registry, half of whom were oversampled to reside in modestly-to-severely impoverished neighborhoods. We made use of an innovative set of nuclear twin family models, thereby allowing us to disambiguate between, and simultaneously estimate, multiple elements of the shared environment as well as genetic influences. Although there was no evidence that the etiology of aggressive antisocial behavior was moderated by neighborhood disadvantage, the etiology of nonaggressive antisocial behavior shifted dramatically with increasing neighborhood disadvantage. Sibling-level shared environmental influences were estimated to be near zero in the wealthiest neighborhoods and increased dramatically in the most impoverished neighborhoods. By contrast, both genetic risk and family-level shared environmental transmission were significantly more influential in middle- and upper-class neighborhoods than in impoverished neighborhoods. Such results collectively highlight the profound role that pervasive neighborhood poverty plays in shaping the etiology of child nonaggressive antisocial behavior. Implications are discussed.
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U2 - 10.1177/2167702615618164
DO - 10.1177/2167702615618164
M3 - Article
C2 - 27347447
AN - SCOPUS:85007565995
SN - 2167-7026
VL - 4
SP - 511
EP - 526
JO - Clinical Psychological Science
JF - Clinical Psychological Science
IS - 3
ER -