Assessing Exposure to Violence in Urban Youth

Abstract

This study reports on the development of a structured interview, My Exposure to Violence (My ETV), that was designed to assess child and youth exposure to violence. Eighty participants between the ages of 9 and 24 were assessed. Data from My ETV were fit to a Rasch model for rating scales, a technique that generates interval level measures and allows the characterization of both chronic and acute exposure. Results indicated that the fit statistics for six scales, covering both lifetime and past year victimization, witnessing of violence, and total exposure, were all good. These scales were found to have high internal consistency (r = .68 to .93) and test-retest reliability (r = .75 to .94). Evidence of construct validity was provided by the item analysis, which revealed a theoretically sensible ordering of item extremity, and also by analysis of bivariate associations. As expected, younger subjects generally reported less exposure to violence than did older subjects, males reported more exposure than did females, African-American subjects reported higher levels of exposure than did White subjects, violent offenders reported more exposure than did non-offenders, and those living in high crime areas reported more exposure than did those residing in low crime areas. Future areas of investigation and the potential contribution to studies of antisocial behavior and post-traumatic stress disorder are discussed.

Perceived and Objectively-Measured Neighborhood Violence and Adolescent Psychological Distress

“…Our results also confirm earlier evidence that while perceived and objective levels of neighborhood violence are strongly associated, they are not interchangeable. 9,12,14 Analytic sample included all CHIS 2011-2014 adolescent subjects whose addresses were accurately geocoded, who had lived at their address for ≥6 months, and whose parent or legal guardian completed the adult interview (n = 4462) b Analytic sample was identical to that for unadjusted models, but models used kernel-matched propensity scores to match Btreated^adolescents to a weighted composite of Bnon-treated^adolescents Our findings are broadly consistent with two separate bodies of research showing, on the one hand, that perceived exposure to neighborhood violence is significantly associated with youths' mental health problems, [2][3][4][5] and, on the other hand, that residing in an area with high rates of violent crime appears to have little impact on risk of depression and anxiety [16][17][18] (with a possible exception for older adults 36 ). None of these studies examined the relative impacts of both subjectivelyand objectively-measured neighborhood violence on adolescents' mental health, and many used high-risk participant samples from urban areas, so they could not rule out the possibility that inadequate variation in levels of neighborhood violence had biased their results.…”

“…2,8 Residents' perceptions of their neighborhood's safety may be more strongly influenced by neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics than by true levels of violence. [9][10][11][12] Furthermore, self-reported measures are vulnerable to common method bias, in which personality or affective traits influence not only individuals' evaluations of their neighborhoods but also their risk of mental health problems. [13][14][15] It has historically been difficult to obtain neighborhood-level crime data, especially across multiple areas.…”

Role of Direct and Indirect Violence Exposure on Externalizing Behavior in Children

“…Additionally, our study would have been strengthened by adding child-reported exposure to violence as well, given that it might be more accurate than parents', especially for older youth. 82,83 Child selfreport on exposure to violence, greater detail on the timing and frequency of violence exposure, the relations between these factors and externalizing behavior, and the impact of positive socio-ecological contexts on behavior must be explored to inform intervention and programming. When combined with our current findings, these future steps would be expected to substantially advance our understanding of how much each type of exposure to violence contributes to externalizing behaviors.…”

Gun Violence, African Ancestry, and Asthma

“…21 This question was administered to participating children aged 9 years and older as part of the Exposure to Violence Survey. 19,[27][28][29] Internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and validity have been established for the English and Spanish versions of the Exposure to Violence Survey.…”