Abstract
The purpose of this study was to use structural equation modeling (SEM) to identify predictors of preschool enrollment among 3- and 4-year-olds in families of Hispanic WIC participants in Los Angeles County (N = 1349). Potential predictors included maternal education, maternal employment, home literacy environment, child’s age, and barriers to childcare. Results indicated that barriers to childcare and child’s age were positively related to preschool enrollment, whereas factors such as maternal education and home literacy environment did not significantly predict preschool enrollment. Based on these results, we suggest that efforts to educate families about the importance of preschool be combined with making preschool more financially and physically accessible to low-income families.
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Data Availability
The datasets analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to constraints from the funding source but may be requested by contacting datamining@phfewic.org.
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Acknowledgements
Funding for this project was provided to Christina Schonberg by First 5 LA through the PHFE WIC 2015 Summer Data Mining Fellowship. The authors would like to thank Lu Jiang, Shannon Whaley, Natsuki Atagi, and Catherine Sandhofer for feedback on earlier drafts of this manuscript.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. For this type of study (i.e., secondary data analysis) formal consent is not required.
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Schonberg, C., Goodale, B.M. & Doerfel, M.K. Predicting Preschool Enrollment Among Hispanic WIC Participants in Los Angeles County. Child Adolesc Soc Work J 36, 125–135 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-018-0559-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-018-0559-z