Contamination in the Prospective Study of Child Maltreatment and Female Adolescent Health

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the impact of contamination, or the presence of child maltreatment in a comparison condition, when estimating the broad, longitudinal effects of child maltreatment on female health at the transition to adulthood.

Methods: The Female Adolescent Development Study (N = 514; age range: 14-19 years) used a prospective cohort design to examine the effects of substantiated child maltreatment on teenage births, obesity, major depression, and past-month cigarette use. Contamination was controlled via a multimethod strategy that used both adolescent self-report and Child Protective Services records to remove cases of child maltreatment from the comparison condition.

Results: Substantiated child maltreatment significantly predicted each outcome, relative risks = 1.47-2.95, 95% confidence intervals: 1.03-7.06, with increases in corresponding effect size magnitudes, only when contamination was controlled using the multimethod strategy.

Conclusions: Contamination truncates risk estimates of child maltreatment and controlling it can strengthen overall conclusions about the effects of child maltreatment on female health.

Keywords: child maltreatment; cigarette use; contamination; depression; obesity; teenage births.