Exposure to community violence and social support as predictors of anxiety and social and emotional behavior among African American children

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.…”

“…In a small sample of Baltimore children (n = 97), Hill and colleagues found that census tract-level crime was unrelated to anxiety symptoms. 16 In a separate Baltimore sample of adult former drug users (n = 786), Curry and colleagues found that census block-group violent crime rates did not directly affect depression symptoms, although there was a weak association between the two that was mediated by participants' perceptions of neighborhood disorder and personal experiences of violence. 17 Lastly, in two large representative samples (n 9 10,000) of English adults, Dustmann and Fasani found that while overall area crime rates were positively related to psychological distress the effect of violent crime was weak.…”

Intervening Processes Between Youths’ Exposure to Community Violence and Internalizing Symptoms Over Time: The Roles of Social Support and Coping

“…Indeed, relations have been found between more social support and fewer internalizing symptoms among youths, even after controlling for exposure to community violence, coping strategies, and/or potential sociodemographic confounders. Availability of social support was associated with fewer PTSD symptoms among predominantly Black and Latino youths (Berman et al 1996); maternal presence in the home was related to fewer depressive symptoms among Black youths (Fitzpatrick 1993); and more family and peer supports were each associated with fewer anxious symptoms among Black youths (Hill et al 1996).…”

Anxiety symptoms in African-American and Caucasian youth: Relations to negative life events, social support, and coping

“…The transition from childhood to adolescence brings with it a new set of challenges. According to one stress coping model (Hill, Levermore, Twaite, & Jones, 1996), youth exposed to multiple stressful life events have an increased vulnerability to adverse outcomes. Although some youth who experience negative life events do not develop psychopathology, many of these youth do.…”