Neighborhood Perceptions Predict Short-Term Change in Child and Family Functioning Among South African Early Adolescents

Introduction

As children enter adolescence and spend increasingly more time outside the home, they develop perceptions of their physical and social neighborhood environments. These perceptions serve as sources of risk and resiliency, as neighborhoods lived in during childhood predict long-term well-being. Many South African youth are embedded in communities that face significant challenges related to violence, inequality, and HIV-infection. Studies of perceived neighborhood quality typically do not consider an early adolescent perspective, though informative to prevention efforts. The current study therefore examines short-term, longitudinal effects of perceived neighborhood quality on indicators of child and family functioning among early adolescent South Africans.

Method

Ninety-nine black South African youth between the ages of 10 to 14 (M age = 12; 53% female) participated in a pilot study of a family-based HIV prevention intervention in Cape Town.  Participants reported aspects of their physical and social neighborhood: perceived safety, cohesion, and collective monitoring.  Each neighborhood characteristic was used as a baseline (T1) predictor of two- (T2) and eight-month (T3) outcomes in youths’ report of their hope and externalizing behavior, and parent-child relationship quality, parental involvement, and parental responsiveness to sex communication. Regression analyses were conducted controlling for demographics, the effect of the intervention, and baseline levels of the outcome variable. Effects on each outcome are interpreted as residualized change scores.

Results

Neighborhood cohesion was found to be related to increased parent-child relationship quality and parental involvement between T1 and T3 (B = 0.333, 95% CI = [0.143, 0.522]; B = 0.026, 95% CI = [0.002, 0.051], respectively) and had a marginally significant effect on increased parental responsiveness during this period as well (B = 0.023, 95% CI = [-0.002, 0.047]). Neighborhood safety was predictive of child outcomes only—significant effects of safety on increased hope and decreased externalizing behaviors between T1 and T3 were observed. Collective monitoring was related to decreased family functioning between T1 and T3 (parent-child relationship quality; B = -0.191, 95% CI = [-0.356, -0.025]) and T2 and T3 (parental responsiveness; B = -0.025, 95% CI = [-0.051, -0.004]) and externalizing behaviors between T1 and T2 (B = -0.029, 95% CI = [-0.050,-0.008]).

Conclusions

Different aspects of perceived neighborhood quality affected distinct child and family outcomes. Living in a safe neighborhood with strong social ties predicts the most positive outcomes. Neighborhoods with a high degree of collective monitoring may promote less family involvement and more community-level childrearing. Prevention and health promotion implications are considered.