Latent Class Analysis of Household and Community Adversity Among Pre-Adolescent Youth in the United States.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to: 1) examine the co-occurrence of household and community adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among preadolescent youth using latent class analysis (LCA), and 2) examine the association of ACE latent clusters to clinical-range scores on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Data came from the baseline and year 1 survey of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study with 10,915 youth recruited from school-based catchment areas in the United States. We used LCA to examine 6 types of household adversity and 7 types of community adversity, including 4 types of discrimination. We identified 5 latent classes of household/community ACEs. The class with high levels of household and community ACEs together was most strongly associated with clinical-range CBCL scores in adjusted models. Assessing adversity comprehensively may improve identification of youth with elevated risk for behavioral symptoms, who are greatest in need of intervention.