A Child-Centered Scale of Informal Social Control for Latino Parents of Preschool-Age Children

Perceived neighborhood informal social control may determine whether parents allow their young children to be physically active in the neighborhood. We developed and validated a scale of neighborhood child-centered informal social control appropriate for Latino parents of preschool-age children. The scale was administered to 240 Latino parents, mainly mothers, recruited from neighborhoods cross-stratified by objectively measured crime and traffic safety. Participants completed measures of community cohesion, perceived signs of physical and social disorder, traffic safety and hazards, and perceived stranger danger. A subsample was reassessed 1 week later to determine test-retest reliability. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were conducted to examine the fit of the data to a priori measurement models. Construct validity was assessed by estimating the associations of the scale with the other measures. The scale showed good test-retest reliability, and factorial and construct validity. The scale needs to be cross-validated on other samples and Latino fathers.

[1]  E. Cerin,et al.  Development and reliability of a scale of physical-activity related informal social control for parents of Chinese pre-schoolers , 2014, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

[2]  Rebecca E. Lee,et al.  Environmental and cultural correlates of physical activity parenting practices among Latino parents with preschool-aged children: Niños Activos , 2014, BMC Public Health.

[3]  B. Giles-Corti,et al.  The impact of parents' fear of strangers and perceptions of informal social control on children's independent mobility. , 2014, Health & place.

[4]  Robert D. Crutchfield,et al.  The Role of Perceptions of the Police in Informal Social Control: Implications for the Racial Stratification of Crime and Control , 2013 .

[5]  K. Jaishankar,et al.  Correlates of Formal and Informal Social Control on Crime Prevention: An Exploratory Study among University Students, Andhra Pradesh, India , 2012 .

[6]  L. Kaiser,et al.  Validation of an instrument to assess toddler feeding practices of Latino mothers , 2011, Appetite.

[7]  Ester Cerin,et al.  Statistical Approaches to Testing the Relationships of the Built Environment with Resident-Level Physical Activity Behavior and Health Outcomes in Cross-Sectional Studies with Cluster Sampling , 2011 .

[8]  D. Spruijt-Metz,et al.  Identifying Patterns of Eating and Physical Activity in Children: A Latent Class Analysis of Obesity Risk , 2011, Obesity.

[9]  K. Peleg,et al.  The Role of Community in Pediatric Injury , 2011, Journal of Community Health.

[10]  F. Sennhauser,et al.  Built environment, parents' perception, and children's vigorous outdoor play. , 2010, Preventive medicine.

[11]  L. Dubois,et al.  Neighbourhoods and child adiposity: a critical appraisal of the literature. , 2010, Health & place.

[12]  I. Borowsky,et al.  Parent Perceptions of Neighborhood: Relationships with US Youth Physical Activity and Weight Status , 2010, Maternal and Child Health Journal.

[13]  Elizabeth Deakin,et al.  Influence of the social environment on children's school travel. , 2010, Preventive medicine.

[14]  Jacqueline Kerr,et al.  Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale for Youth (NEWS-Y): reliability and relationship with physical activity. , 2009, Preventive medicine.

[15]  Paula M. Cuccaro,et al.  Influences of physical and social neighborhood environments on children's physical activity and obesity. , 2009, American journal of public health.

[16]  G. Colditz,et al.  Neighborhood social cohesion and youth participation in physical activity in Chicago. , 2009, Social science & medicine.

[17]  P. Tucker,et al.  The physical activity levels of preschool-aged children: A systematic review , 2008 .

[18]  I. Grafova,et al.  Overweight children: assessing the contribution of the built environment. , 2008, Preventive medicine.

[19]  A. Timperio,et al.  Playing it safe: the influence of neighbourhood safety on children's physical activity. A review. , 2008, Health & place.

[20]  A. Okely,et al.  Preschool children and physical activity: a review of correlates. , 2008, American journal of preventive medicine.

[21]  Alan Y. Chiang,et al.  Generalized Additive Models: An Introduction With R , 2007, Technometrics.

[22]  C. Lawson,et al.  Do attributes in the physical environment influence children's physical activity? A review of the literature , 2006, The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity.

[23]  Aimee Bower,et al.  Collective efficacy and obesity: the potential influence of social factors on health. , 2006, Social science & medicine.

[24]  Martha Hijar,et al.  Social capital in settings with a high concentration of road traffic injuries. The case of Cuernavaca, Mexico. , 2005, Social science & medicine.

[25]  Maureen M. Black,et al.  FACTORIAL STRUCTURE OF THE PERCEIVED NEIGHBORHOOD SCALE (PNS): A TEST OF LONGITUDINAL INVARIANCE , 2002 .

[26]  J. Milyo,et al.  Income inequality and health. , 2001, Journal of policy analysis and management : [the journal of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management].

[27]  K. Yuan,et al.  5. Three Likelihood-Based Methods for Mean and Covariance Structure Analysis with Nonnormal Missing Data , 2000 .

[28]  J D Dawson,et al.  Tracking physical fitness and physical activity from childhood to adolescence: the muscatine study. , 2000, Medicine and science in sports and exercise.

[29]  Robert J. Sampson,et al.  Beyond Social Capital: Spatial Dynamics of Collective Efficacy for Children , 1999, American Sociological Review.

[30]  P. Bentler,et al.  Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis : Conventional criteria versus new alternatives , 1999 .

[31]  S. Raudenbush,et al.  Neighborhoods and violent crime: a multilevel study of collective efficacy. , 1997, Science.

[32]  C. Coulton,et al.  Measuring neighborhood context for young children in an urban area , 1996 .

[33]  S G Trost,et al.  Tracking of physical activity in young children. , 1996, Medicine and science in sports and exercise.

[34]  D. Watson,et al.  Constructing validity: Basic issues in objective scale development , 1995 .

[35]  Ralph B. Taylor.  The Impact of Crime on Communities , 1995 .

[36]  J. Sallis,et al.  Anglo- and Mexican‐American Preschoolers at Home and at Recess: Activity Patterns and Environmental Influences , 1992, Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP.

[37]  J. Coleman,et al.  Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital , 1988, American Journal of Sociology.

[38]  J. R. Landis,et al.  The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. , 1977, Biometrics.

[39]  David H. Gustafson,et al.  Group Techniques for Program Planning: A Guide to Nominal Group and Delphi Processes , 1976 .