Quality of Home Environment and Mental Health Problems for Children Living in an Intimate Partner Violence Rehousing Program

Exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is a prevalent, urgent public health problem. IPV exposure is associated with a significant risk of mental health problems for youth. African American women are disproportionately affected by IPV in the United States and African American youth suffer increased rates of adverse mental health outcomes as a result. Support for survivors of IPV and their children is increasingly taking the form of long-term rehousing programs. A child's home environment is a critical component of their daily functioning and has been established as a risk and/or protective factor in the development of mental health problems. Despite the importance of home environments for IPV-exposed children, little research has been conducted in this area. Our study leveraged a larger scale NICHD funded study (R01 HD102436-04; PI Sharp) to examine the quality of the home environment of N = 39 IPV-exposed mothers and their children in a rehousing program and its associations with youth mental health functioning. The Home Observation Measurement of the Environment (HOME) was qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed to shed light on the potential impact of disparities on youth mental health. We also utilized an observational measure of racial socialization practices (the Africentric HOME) to examine its relevance in this context for a subset of African American mother−child dyads. We found that a greater overall quality of the home environment was strongly correlated with fewer child mental health problems and greater child prosocial behaviors, according to caregiver and child reports. The specific HOME subdomains of Encouragement of Maturity, Emotional Climate, Family Companionship, Family Integration, and Physical Environment demonstrated several significant associations with child mental health outcomes. Implications of these findings on disparities in youth mental health and potential considerations for IPV rehousing programs are discussed.