ASSESSING HETEROGENEITY IN RISK AND PROTECTION AMONG ALASKA CHILDREN

Early childhood development is influenced by risk factors that undermine and protective factors that promote healthy developmental outcomes. Alaska children are an important population for gaining a comprehensive understanding of experiences risk and protective factors. Collective trauma among the Alaska Native/American Indian (AN/AI) population may contribute to differences in the intersection of risk and protective factors between AN/AI and non-Native children. Alaska children also experience high rates of contact with child protective services (CPS) for suspected maltreatment, a salient risk factor for poor development, with higher rates observed among AN/AI compared to non-Native children. We used data from the Alaska Longitudinal Child Abuse and Neglect Linkage (ALCANLink) project, a linkage of 2009-2011 Alaska Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System births with administrative data sources, and the 2012-2014 Alaska Childhood Understanding Behaviors Survey. We conducted latent class analysis to identify classes of risk and protective factors and growth mixture modeling to identify longitudinal trajectory classes of CPS contact among AN/AI and non-Native children. We used Vermunt’s three-step approach to examine predictors and outcomes associated with identified classes. We identified two classes of risk and protective factors among AN/AI children: 1) high risk-moderate protection (29.1%) and 2) low socioeconomic status (SES)-high protection (70.9%). We identified two classes among non-Native children: 1) moderate risk-high protection (32.9%) and 2) low risk-high protection (67.1%). Several preconception and prenatal factors, such as stressful life events and lower maternal education, predicted the “higher risk” classes, and child developmental risk was associated with the “higher risk” classes. We identified three trajectory classes of CPS contact among AN/AI children: 1) no/low CPS contact (75.4%); 2) continuous CPS contact (19.6%), and 3) early decreasing CPS contact (5.0%). We identified four classes among non-Native children: 1) no CPS contact (81.3%); 2) low increasing CPS contact (9.5%); 3) early, rapid decline CPS contact (5.8%); and 4) high decreasing CPS contact (3.3%). Maternal substance use during pregnancy had the largest impact on probabilities of class membership for both AN/AI and non-Native children. Results highlight underlying heterogeneity in early experiences among Alaska children and provide insight for informing interventions to promote healthy child development.Doctor of Philosoph