Chapter 4 - Novel Assessment Techniques Aimed at Identifying Proximal and Distal Environmental Risk Factors for Children and Adolescents

Summary

This chapter presents a discussion of novel assessment techniques that may strengthen the ability to identify the environmental risks for children accurately and thoroughly. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is ideally suited to provide rich data to improve our understanding of proximal environmental indices that effect child outcomes such as parent behavior, family dynamics, and social networks. The proximal determinants often interact with distal environmental factors such as the neighborhood environment. The chapter highlights novel approaches to assessing these distal environmental factors. Two recent techniques, systematic social observation (SSO) and geographic information systems (GIS) have been used to identify disorder in environments, as well as the spatial proximity of risky and protective environmental structures. A novel assessment technique that may add to the reliability of child and teen report of movement in the neighborhood are Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) devices.