Associations among Early Exposure to Neighborhood Disorder, Fathers’ Early Involvement, and Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Problems

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This study aimed to examine (1) the effects of early exposure to neighborhood disorder and fathers’ early involvement on children’s long-term internalizing and externalizing problems, and (2) whether fathers’ early involvement buffered effects of early exposure to neighborhood disorder on children’s internalizing and externalizing problems.

Method

We used five waves of Fragile Family and Child Wellbeing study data and conducted multi-level longitudinal mixed-effects models to examine relationships among early exposure to neighborhood disorder, fathers’ early involvement, and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems.

Results

Results indicated that early exposure to neighborhood disorder was associated with increased children’s internalizing and externalizing problems, while fathers’ early involvement was associated with decreased children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. However, fathers’ early involvement did not buffer the negative effects of early exposure to neighborhood disorder on children’s internalizing and externalizing problems.

Discussion

The findings suggest the importance of neighborhood order and fathers’ early involvement in decreasing children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. Developing neighborhood-level interventions and improving fathers’ involvement in early childhood are potential strategies to prevent children’s behavioral problems in the long term.

KEYWORDS:

• Neighborhood disorder
• fathers’ early involvement
• children’s internalizing problems
• children’s externalizing problems
• quantitative research
• multi-level longitudinal mixed-effects models

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this article.

Ethics approval

This study did not involve human subjects and received an Institutional Review Board exempt review.

Additional information

Funding

The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study was supported by The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (5P30-HD-32030) under award numbers [R01HD36916, R01HD39135, and R01HD40421], as well as a consortium of private foundations. The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.