Biomaterial Database

Low-income mothers' social support and children's injuries. 2009

Lindsey Jeanne Leininger, and Rebecca M Ryan, and Ariel Kalil

Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53726, USA. lleininger@wisc.edu

This study examined the association between low-income mothers' perceived social support and the prevalence of their children's medically treated accidents and injuries. Data were drawn from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS), an experimental evaluation of 11 welfare-to-work programs in seven U.S. cities. In regression models, maternal social support was significantly associated with the likelihood that children experienced an accident or injury between the ages of 8 and 10 such that children of mothers with very limited support were at the highest risk. This association was robust to the inclusion of a wide range of controls, including a prior measure of accident and injury occurrence. A primary finding was that only children whose mothers had the lowest levels of social support, characterized here as socially isolated, suffered significantly higher rates of injury. This suggests that social isolation presents a meaningful threat to child safety and may play an important role in the etiology of child injury among low-income families.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D008297	Male		Males
D008429	Maternal Welfare	Organized efforts by communities or organizations to improve the health and well-being of the mother.	Welfare, Maternal
D011203	Poverty	A situation in which the level of living of an individual, family, or group is below the standard of the community. It is often related to a specific income level.	Federal Poverty Level,Federal Poverty Threshold,Indigency,Low-Income Population,Absolute Poverty,Extreme Poverty,Indigents,Low Income Population,Federal Poverty Levels,Indigent,Level, Federal Poverty,Low Income Populations,Low-Income Populations,Population, Low Income,Population, Low-Income,Poverty Level, Federal,Poverty Threshold, Federal,Poverty, Absolute,Poverty, Extreme
D001741	Black or African American	A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/1997/10/30/97-28653/revisions-to-the-standards-for-the classification-of-federal-data-on-race-and-ethnicity). In the United States it is used for classification of federal government data on race and ethnicity. Race and ethnicity terms are self-identified social construct and may include terms outdated and offensive in MeSH to assist users who are interested in retrieving comprehensive search results for studies such as in longitudinal studies.	African American,African Americans,African-American,Afro-American,Afro-Americans,Black Americans,Blacks,Negroes,African-Americans,Negro,Afro American,Afro Americans,American, African,American, Black,Black American
D002648	Child	A person 6 to 12 years of age. An individual 2 to 5 years old is CHILD, PRESCHOOL.	Children
D002669	Child Welfare	Organized efforts by communities or organizations to improve the health and well-being of the child.	Adolescent Welfare,Welfare, Adolescent,Welfare, Child
D002675	Child, Preschool	A child between the ages of 2 and 5.	Children, Preschool,Preschool Child,Preschool Children
D005260	Female		Females
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D012944	Social Support	Support systems that provide assistance and encouragement to individuals with physical or emotional disabilities in order that they may better cope. Informal social support is usually provided by friends, relatives, or peers, while formal assistance such as COMMUNITY SUPPORT is provided by churches, groups, etc.	Perceived Social Support,Social Care,Online Social Support,Care, Social,Online Social Supports,Perceived Social Supports,Social Support, Online,Social Support, Perceived,Social Supports, Online,Social Supports, Perceived,Support, Online Social,Support, Perceived Social,Support, Social,Supports, Perceived Social