The current study examines the child maltreatment prevention capacity of a program aimed to reduce alcohol use and related problems. Specifically, this project takes advantage of data from the Sacramento Neighborhood Alcohol Prevention Project (SNAPP) conducted in early 2000's and analyzes them in relation to changes in child maltreatment. Environmental prevention efforts that seek to reduce the supply of alcohol have a history of targeting alcohol-related problems, such as assaults and traffic crashes, but have not yet been studied in relation to child abuse and neglect. Yet, the role of alcohol use in the etiology of abusive and neglectful parenting is significant.
The aims for the current study are:
Aim 1 : Determine whether the SNAPP intervention and how dosage of its specific components reduced overall and type specific (e.g., neglect, physical abuse) rates of child maltreatment (measured by referrals for investigations, substantiated cases of maltreatment, and foster care entries) in study areas from 1998 to 2014;
Aim 2 : Identify whether the SNAPP intervention as a whole and which components were more likely to reduce alcohol-related child maltreatment (as measured by case plan objectives) in the intervention areas;
and Aim 3 : Investigate if changes in substantiations or foster care entries due to SNAPP are moderated by parent age e. As SNAPP addressed issues of alcohol use and alcohol access among young adults aged 15- 29, we expect greater reductions in child maltreatment outcomes among this age group in the study areas compared to those in the control area and older parents. By examining the effectiveness of alcohol environmental prevention approaches on reducing child maltreatment, we are expanding the possible reach of such intervention efforts. Such information will allow us to determine if these intervention programs are even more cost effective than originally thought. Examining the effects of dosage of the five SNAPP interventions on child maltreatment rates will allow us to which components are more effective at reducing maltreatment.
The short-term goal of this project is to determine whether or not environmental alcohol prevention interventions show some utility in reducing child abuse and neglect. These environmental interventions could be less expensive and more easily sustained than many individual-level primary prevention efforts to reduce child abuse with savings to public health for these programs higher than previously estimated. The long-term goal is to identify a suite of population-level primary prevention approaches that can reduce the costs associated with child abuse and neglect.
