Neighborhood Collective Efficacy as a Culturally Responsive Resilience Process: A Longitudinal Study of African American Youth From Fragile Families

A reliance on informal supports and neighborhood relationships has its history within the African American community as a useful strategy for building and maintaining overall resilience. It is known that a history of systemic oppression gave rise to distinct cultural barriers to social services and resources, leading to a reliance on community to help foster success in the African American community. Thus, the notion of neighborhood collective efficacy (NCE) is assumed to be a valuable protective process to explore for African American youth. The current exploratory study utilizes multilevel growth curve modeling to examine the relationship between NCE and aspects of resilience over time. Findings reveal a significant, positive relationship and important implications for culturally responsive study and practice.

Deadly Gun Violence, Neighborhood Collective Efficacy, and Adolescent Neurobehavioral Outcomes

Gun violence is a major public health problem and costs the United States $280 billion annually (1). Although adolescents are disproportionately impacted (e.g., via premature death), we know little about how close adolescents live to deadly gun violence incidents and whether such proximity impacts their socioemotional development (2–4). Moreover, gun violence is likely to shape youth developmental outcomes through biological processes – including functional connectivity within regions of the brain that support emotion processing, salience detection, and physiological stress responses – though little work has examined this hypothesis. Lastly, it is unclear if strong neighborhood social ties can buffer youth from the neurobehavioral effects of gun violence. Within a nationwide birth cohort of 3,444 youth (56% Black, 24% Hispanic) born in large U.S. cities, every additional exposure to a deadly gun violence incident within 500 meters of home in the prior year increased behavioral problems by 7.7%, even after accounting for area-level crime and socioeconomic resources. Incidents that occurred closer to a child’s home exerted larger effects, and stronger neighborhood social ties offset these associations. In a neuroimaging subsample (N = 164) of the larger cohort, exposure to more incidents of gun violence and weaker social ties were associated with weaker amygdala-prefrontal functional connectivity during socioemotional processing, a pattern previously linked to less effective emotion regulation. Results provide spatially-sensitive evidence for gun violence effects on adolescent behavior, a potential mechanism through which risk is biologically-embedded, and ways in which positive community factors offset ecological risk.

Erratum: Wang, H., et al. The Relationship between Parental Perception of Neighborhood Collective Efficacy and Physical Violence by Parents against Preschool Children: A Cross-Sectional Study in a County of China. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 2306

The authors would like to correct the Cronbach’s α for the measures in the “Methods” section of their previous paper [...]

Examining the (Dis)Agreement between Etiology and Consequences of Adults’ and Youths’ Perceptions of Collective Efficacy in Boston

Objectives: To examine the extent to which adults’ and youths’ perceptions of collective efficacy align, the shared and unique correlates of adults’ and youths’ perceptions, and the effects of adults’ and youths’ perceptions on youths’ violence. Method: Descriptive analysis, hierarchical linear modeling, and spatial analysis analyze 1,636 youths from the 2008 Boston Youth Survey and 1,677 adults distributed across 85 neighborhoods from the 2008 Boston Neighborhood Study. Results: Descriptive analysis indicates that Boston adults’ and youths’ perceptions are largely divergent. Spatial analysis indicates that there is not clustering of either adults’ or youths’ perceptions across Boston neighborhoods. Multilevel models indicate that adults’ and youths’ perceptions exhibit divergent etiology: Adults’ perceptions align closely with neighborhood collective efficacy and with their own neighborhood perceptions, while youths’ perceptions are largely a function of individual differences (race and age) and sociobehavioral factors (social support and educational expectations). Youths’ perceptions of collective efficacy, rather than aggregated adults’ perceptions of collective efficacy, are inversely associated with youths’ violence. Conclusions: Adults’ and youths’ perceptions of collective efficacy represent distinct constructs. Research should focus on the divergent processes through which adults’ and youths’ perceptions are generated and the differential effects of adults’ and youths’ perceptions on youths’ behaviors.

The Relationship between Parental Perception of Neighborhood Collective Efficacy and Physical Violence by Parents against Preschool Children: A Cross-Sectional Study in a County of China

Children exposed to negative neighborhood environments are at high risk of experiencing violence. This study aimed to explore the effects of parental perception of neighborhood collective efficacy on parental physical violence (PV) to their preschool children in a county of China. A total of 1337 parents from nine kindergartens were recruited by the stratified random cluster sampling method. Data about parental PV behavior toward children during the past three months, parental perception of neighborhood collective efficacy, together with their attitudes towards the use of corporal punishment to discipline children, and demographic characteristics were collected. Their relationships were investigated by applying multivariable logistic regression models. Overall, 67.5% of the parents reported at least one form of PV during the past three months. The rates of minor PV (MPV) and severe PV (SPV) were 67% and 22.8%, respectively. The results of multivariate logistic regression showed that only social cohesion was associated with lower odds of parental PV and MPV behavior after controlling for covariates. The results suggest that neighborhood collective efficacy is associated with parental PV behavior against their children to some extent, but the effects differ according to the severity level of PV. Neighborhood social cohesion may have a positive role in reducing parental PV behavior in the county surveyed at present study.