Poverty transitions among families supporting a child with intellectual disability

Background: Little is known about child disability and dynamic aspects of poverty. Method: Analysis of data collected over a 12-month period for families a supporting a child with intellectual disability n = 370, b supporting a child with other disability n = 1,418, and c supporting a child with no disability n = 7,215. Results: When compared to families not supporting a child with disability, families supporting a child with intellectual disability were a more likely to be poor, b more likely to become poor, c less likely to escape from being poor. Half of poverty transitions were associated with identifiable potential trigger events. Conclusions: There were few differences between families supporting or not supporting a child with disability with regard to either levels of exposure to potential trigger events or to the strength of the association between exposure and poverty transitions.