Johnson Elizabeth I, Planalp Elizabeth M, Williams Deadric T, Poehlmann Julie
University of Tennessee, USA.
University of Wisconsin, USA.
SSM Popul Health. 2024 Jul 26;27:101702. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2024.101702. eCollection 2024 Sep.
Parental incarceration is an adverse childhood experience that inequitably burdens families of color and affects millions of U.S. children and adolescents. Although racialized disparities in exposure to parental incarceration are often acknowledged, researchers have yet to examine whether manifestations of racism may affect the link between parental incarceration and youth outcomes. This study provides a first look at how parental incarceration relates to health vulnerabilities in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, an ongoing, population-based study of U.S. children born between 2006 and 2008. We start by describing exposure to parental incarceration and then examine how parental incarceration, state-level racial prejudice, and discrimination relate to health risks among 9191 White (66%), Black (19%), or Hispanic (15%) youth. Consistent with what we know about pervasive racialized disparities in the U.S. criminal legal system, we find that 19.3% of Black children in our sample have experienced parental incarceration, followed by 7.8% of Hispanic children, and 4.8% of White children. Results of multilevel mixed models further indicate that parental incarceration was associated with increased health risks among White children whereas family economic hardship and discrimination experiences were more robustly associated with health vulnerabilities among Black and Hispanic children. Additional analyses explored whether parental incarceration was associated with other outcomes among Black and Hispanic children, revealing increased risk for behavior problems contingent upon parental incarceration and discrimination for Black children and Hispanic boys. Among Hispanic girls, parental incarceration was associated with increased risk of behavior problems in states with higher levels of racism. Results suggest that parental incarceration contributes to risk among early adolescents across racialized groups, but that the specific toll it takes depends on outcomes assessed and the context in which it occurs.
父母一方被监禁是一种不良童年经历，它不公平地给有色人种家庭带来负担，影响着数百万美国儿童和青少年。尽管人们普遍认识到在接触父母一方被监禁方面存在种族差异，但研究人员尚未考察种族主义的表现形式是否会影响父母一方被监禁与青少年结局之间的联系。本研究首次探讨了在青少年大脑认知发展（ABCD）研究中，父母一方被监禁与健康脆弱性之间的关系。ABCD研究是一项正在进行的、基于美国2006年至2008年出生儿童的全国性研究。我们首先描述了父母一方被监禁的情况，然后考察了父母一方被监禁、州一级的种族偏见和歧视与9191名白人（66%）、黑人（19%）或西班牙裔（15%）青少年的健康风险之间的关系。与我们对美国刑事司法系统中普遍存在的种族差异的了解一致，我们发现样本中19.3%的黑人儿童经历过父母一方被监禁，其次是7.8%的西班牙裔儿童和4.8%的白人儿童。多层次混合模型的结果进一步表明，父母一方被监禁与白人儿童健康风险增加有关，而家庭经济困难和歧视经历与黑人和西班牙裔儿童的健康脆弱性更密切相关。进一步的分析探讨了父母一方被监禁是否与黑人和西班牙裔儿童的其他结局有关，结果显示，父母一方被监禁以及黑人儿童和西班牙裔男孩遭受歧视会增加行为问题的风险。在种族主义程度较高的州，西班牙裔女孩的父母一方被监禁与行为问题风险增加有关。结果表明，父母一方被监禁会增加不同种族青少年群体的风险，但具体影响取决于所评估的结局以及发生的背景。
