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The Stigma of Being a Young Parent: Development of a Measurement Tool and Predictors

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Abstract

Objectives

Many young parents perceive stigma from their communities and experience barriers and discrimination in school and healthcare, which may result in health and social consequences. The current study develops and validates a Young Parent Stigma Scale (YPSS), and examines score variation.

Methods

Young parent stigma was conceptualized using literature review and stakeholder interviews. We generated a pool of 66 items and conducted cognitive interviews with 12 young parents to pre-test and subsequently revise the items. A revised self-administered survey was completed by 370 parenting youth aged 13–24 across the USA.

Results

We conducted exploratory factor analysis to develop a 23-item scale with five subscales: internalized, enacted, anticipated, felt and racialized stigma. Each subscale had low to moderate correlation with the others (0.41–0.59), and demonstrated adequate internal reliability (α = 0.64–0.88). The total scale one-factor model loaded similarly as the five factor model (α = 0.92). YPSS total scale scores varied by sociodemographic characteristic, with male gender, lower socioeconomic status, northeast and southern residence, non-Christianity, and Arab/Middle–Eastern descent associated with higher stigma. Psychosocial experiences (postpartum mental and emotional well-being, and intimate partner violence) were also associated with higher total YPSS scale scores.

Conclusions

The YPSS total scale and its subscales demonstrated good psychometric properties and this study highlights the groups of adolescent parents most affected. The YPSS can be used to measure the latent construct of young parent stigma and the subscales can be used independently to measure aspects of this construct.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the young parents and young parent advocates who courageously shared stories and experiences from their lives with us. We would also like to acknowledge following people for their support of this paper: Steph Herold, Edward Frongillo, Ushma Upadhyay, and Antonia Biggs.

Funding

This study was funded by the Ford Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Whitney S. Rice

  2. Department of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Lila A. Sheira

  3. Sea Change Program, Tides Foundation, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Elizabeth Greenblatt, Madeline Blodgett & Kate Cockrill

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  1. Whitney S. Rice
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  2. Lila A. Sheira
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  3. Elizabeth Greenblatt
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Correspondence to Whitney S. Rice or Kate Cockrill.

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Conflict of Interest

Whitney S. Rice declares that she has no conflict of interest. Lila A. Sheira declares that she has no conflict of interest. Elizabeth Greenblatt declares that she has no conflict of interest. Madeline Blodgett declares that she has not conflict of interest. Kate Cockrill declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

This manuscript does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors. The methods and protocols for this study were reviewed and approved by Allendale Investigational Review Board. 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.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Rice, W.S., Sheira, L.A., Greenblatt, E. et al. The Stigma of Being a Young Parent: Development of a Measurement Tool and Predictors. J Child Fam Stud 28, 642–655 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-01306-3

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