Operationalizing childhood adversity to predict delinquency: Comparing single adversity, cumulative risk, and latent class approaches

Background: Juvenile delinquency remains a major concern. While adversity is linked to delinquency, less is known about how different operationalizations of adversity compare in predicting delinquency. Many studies overlook key features including type, co-occurrence, timing, and chronicity. Objective: This study compared three approaches to operationalizing adversity across two developmental periods-childhood and adolescence-by examining individual adversities, cumulative adversity scores, and latent class analysis (LCA), and examining their associations with delinquency. Participants and setting: Data were drawn from the Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally representative UK longitudinal sample (N = 9980). Methods: Linear regression analyses assessed associations for individual adversities measured separately in childhood and adolescence, cumulative adversity scores calculated for each period, and LCA-derived adversity patterns spanning both periods. Results: Several childhood adversities (parental divorce/separation, maternal alcohol and drug use) and several adolescent adversities (maternal drug use, accidents or injuries, conventional criminal victimization, sexual victimization, and electronic victimization) predicted higher delinquency. LCA identified four groups: low adversity with moderate childhood physical threat, high deprivation with childhood threat, maternal substance use with adolescent threat, and high general adversity. Individuals in the low-adversity class reported less delinquency than average, whereas those in the high-adversity class reported more. Cumulative scores were also positively associated with delinquency, with adolescent cumulative adversity showing the stronger effects. Conclusions: Deprivation-related adversities in childhood and threat-related adversities in adolescence were particularly influential. Individuals exposed to high cumulative adolescent adversity or chronic multi-domain adversities were most vulnerable. Each operationalization provided distinct insights, underscoring the importance of how adversity is conceptualized.