Child Poverty and Health in the United States: Introduction and Executive Summary

Parenting Challenges and Opportunities among Families Living in Poverty

“…While numerous studies have examined associations between poverty and individual factors of family life or child development (Banovcinova et al 2014;Edin and Kissane 2010;Gupta et al 2007;McLoyd 2021;Pryor et al 2019), the current study was designed to provide a more comprehensive narrative of the experiences that a variety of parents living in poverty experience on a day-to-day level, with the intent to inform community intervention and policy development for families living with increased risk factors while parenting young children. While qualitative methods have not been traditionally utilized for conducting research related to parenting and poverty at large, qualitative research examining such themes has proven influential and uniquely informative of the realities of parenting in poverty (Edin and Kissane 2010;Schickedanz et al 2021). The strength of the present study is the ability to capture parents' own experiences related to parenting and raising their families in poverty at the micro-level.…”

“…Families strive to keep their children safe, provide food daily, and deal with stigma and discrimination that reduce their ability to obtain resources for their children. In the United States today, roughly 1 in 5 children live in poverty using the 1960s Federal Poverty Level standard, and 2 in 5 children live in households considered low income, which is twice that level and more comparable to international poverty cutoffs (Schickedanz et al 2021). Poverty is associated with additional risk factors for children's development.…”

Elevated parent and child hair cortisol moderated the efficacy of a mindful eating intervention

“…To contribute to filling the above knowledge gaps, the purpose of this exploratory pilot study, which included parent‐preschooler dyads, was 3‐fold: (1) to examine how baseline chronic stress (assessed by hair cortisol) moderated the effects of a mindful eating intervention on anthropometric indices (body mass index [BMI], % body fat), blood pressure (BP), household food insecurity, eating behaviour (fruit/vegetable [F/V] intake, emotional eating), and psychosocial outcomes (coping strategies, feeding practices, and home eating environment); (2) to explore the interaction effects of parents' and preschoolers' hair cortisol on the intervention outcome changes from baseline to post‐intervention; and (3) to examine whether the relationship between baseline hair cortisol and the post‐intervention outcomes varied by baseline values of the outcome variables. Because families living in poverty have a higher risk of obesity, unbalanced eating behaviour, and poor mental health (Schickedanz et al., 2021), we focused on examining these important objectives among parent‐preschooler dyads in families having annual incomes below poverty thresholds set by the U.S. government.…”

“…Because families living in poverty have a higher risk of obesity, unbalanced eating behaviour, and poor mental health (Schickedanz et al, 2021), we focused on examining these important objectives among parent-preschooler dyads in families having annual incomes below poverty thresholds set by the U.S. government.…”