Contextual Risk Factors: Impact on Early Childhood Mental Health

The multi-domain model of risk factors for psychopathology in young children examined in this work includes four domains ranging from distal risk factors to those that are more proximal to the child. These include contextual, parent, parenting, and child factors. This chapter focuses on contextual risk factors. Among these factors, the phenomena that researchers have examined have focused on the relation of socioeconomic status (SES), stress, and conflict with different types or dimensions or types of child psychopathology. While SES has been found to be associated with various types of psychopathology symptoms, relatively little attention has been paid to examining the pathways by which SES is associated with child psychopathology over time. Numerous studies have determined that there is an association between parent or family stress and child psychopathology, and the association may be stronger with internalizing disorders than externalizing disorders. Similarly, there is a clear relation between family conflict and child psychopathology but, as with SES, the pathways by which stress and conflict may contribute to the development of child psychopathology have not been thoroughly studied. Further research to clarify the pathways within and across domains that might contribute to developing and maintaining childhood psychopathology is clearly needed.