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© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Previous studies have examined the association between family dysfunction and pubertal timing in adolescent girls. However, the evidence is lacking on the role of family dysfunction during sensitive developmental periods in both boys and girls from racial and ethnic minority groups. This study aimed to determine the effect of family dysfunction on the timing of pubertal maturation among US Hispanic/Latino children and adolescents. Participants were 1466 youths (50% female; ages 8–16 years) from the Hispanic Community Children’s Health Study/Study of Latino Youth (SOL Youth). Pubertal maturation was measured using self-administered Pubertal Development Scale (PDS) items for boys and girls. Family dysfunction included measures of single-parent family structure, unhealthy family functioning, low parental closeness, and neglectful parenting style. We used multivariable ordinal logistic and linear regression analyses to examine the associations between family dysfunction and pubertal maturation (individual and cumulative measures), with adjustment for childhood BMI and socioeconomic factors, design effects (strata and clustering), and sample weights. Multivariable models of individual PDS items showed that family dysfunction was negatively associated with growth in height (OR = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.44, 0.99) in girls; no associations were found in boys. In the assessment of cumulative PDS scores, family dysfunction was associated with a lower average pubertal maturation score (b = −0.63, 95% CI: −1.21, −0.05) in boys, while no associations were found in girls. Pubertal timing lies at the intersection of associations between childhood adversity and adult health and warrants further investigation to understand the factors affecting timing and differences across sex and sociocultural background.

Details

Title
Family Functioning and Pubertal Maturation in Hispanic/Latino Children from the HCHS/SOL Youth
Author
April-Sanders, Ayana K 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Tehranifar Parisa 2 ; Terry, Mary Beth 2 ; Crookes, Danielle M 3 ; Isasi, Carmen R 4 ; Gallo, Linda C 5   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Fernandez-Rhodes, Lindsay 6   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Perreira, Krista M 7   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Daviglus, Martha L 8 ; Suglia, Shakira F 9 

 Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Rutgers School of Public Health, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA 
 Department of Epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY 10032, USA; [email protected] (P.T.); [email protected] (M.B.T.), Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA 
 Department of Health Sciences and College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA; [email protected] 
 Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY 10461, USA; [email protected], Department of Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY 10461, USA 
 Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA; [email protected] 
 Department of Biobehavioral Health, College of Health and Human Development, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA; [email protected] 
 Department of Social Medicine, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; [email protected] 
 Institute of Minority Health Research, University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago, IL 60612, USA; [email protected] 
 Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA; [email protected] 
First page
576
Publication year
2025
Publication date
2025
Publisher
MDPI AG
ISSN
1661-7827
e-ISSN
1660-4601
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3194612970
Copyright
© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.