The Longitudinal Association Between Exposure to Violence and Patterns of Health Risk Behaviors Among African American Youth

Abstract

Purpose: We investigate whether exposure to violence (ETV) during adolescence and emerging adulthood predicts engagement in chronic disease-related health risk behaviors years later among African Americans. Design: A longitudinal study following youth from mid-adolescence (mean age = 14.8 years) to young adulthood (mean age = 32.0 years). Setting: Flint, Michigan. Sample: Four hundred forty-two African American (96.2%) and mixed African American and White (3.8%) participants. Measures: Outcomes were diet, smoking, drinking, and physical inactivity. Covariates were ETV, sex, mother’s educational attainment, and substance use by siblings, peers, and parents. Analysis: Latent profile analysis was conducted to identify distinct patterns of adult health risk behaviors and assess the association of youth ETV and identified patterns. Results: Four latent profiles were identified: high substance use (n = 46; 10.41%) , high overall risk (n = 71; 16.06%) , low overall risk ( n = 140; 31.67%) and inactive (n = 185, 41.86%). Relative to the low overall risk profile, ETV was associated with being in the high overall risk profile (b = 0.37, p = 0.04), but not other profiles. Female gender and higher maternal education were associated with being in the inactive profile compared to the low overall risk profile. Peer alcohol and tobacco use were associated with being in the high substance use profile. Conclusion: ETV during adolescence and emerging adulthood increased the risk of engagement in multiple health risk behaviors later in life.

Community engagement, greening, and violent crime: A test of the greening hypothesis and Busy Streets

“…Since we found time by condition interaction effects in spite of this initial limited variance—and included control variables, and time and condition main effects, in our model—our results suggest that the effects of community-engaged greening (and greening more generally) might be particularly strong. In addition, a small effect may have significant health consequences as researchers have found that detrimental health and mental health sequelae are associated with victimization and exposure to community violence ( Goldstick et al, 2018 ; Heinze et al, 2017 ; Hsieh et al, 2017 , 2021 ; Lee et al, 2020 ). Thus, reduced exposure to even a single violent event can have important health consequences.…”

Exploring Multisystemic Resilience among Youth of Color Exposed to Direct and Indirect Violence

“…When these facets of violence were assessed in the first block of the regression model, only direct violence exposure was significantly linked to resilience, such that less direct violence was associated with higher resilience. Previous literature has examined rates and effects of cumulative violence exposure among YOC without accounting for variability based on types of violence (e.g., Antunes & Ahlin, 2021;Frazer et al, 2018;Hsieh et al, 2021;Slopen et al, 2016). Few studies have analyzed the potential for direct and indirect violence to have differential relations to resilience.…”

“…For example, Hsieh and colleagues (2021) found that exposure to direct and indirect violence among African American youth may increase psychological and physiological stress. Previous literature has typically combined direct and indirect violence, assessing it cumulatively (Antunes & Ahlin, 2021;Frazer et al, 2018;Hsieh et al, 2021;Slopen et al, 2016). However, some literature suggests that direct and indirect violence may differentially affect youths' functioning (Elsaesser, 2018;Zeringue, 2019;Zimmerman & Posick, 2016).…”

Protective factors for suicidal ideation among Black adolescents indirectly exposed to community violence

“…In addition to serious physical health consequences and risk of death (Wright et al, 2017), Black adolescents’ community violence exposure has been linked with depressive, anxious, and post‐traumatic stress symptoms, as well as externalizing behaviors ranging from impulsivity and aggression to conduct problems and substance use (Fowler et al, 2009). Troubling in their own right, each of these internalizing and externalizing concerns during adolescence has been shown to forecast difficulties in social, academic, and physical health domains enduring in adolescence and into adulthood (Hsieh et al, 2021; Loomis et al, 2020). In addition, community and population‐based research highlights community violence exposure as a risk for youth's suicide ideation and attempts (see Castellví et al, 2017 for a review), though research focused exclusively on Black youth is limited.…”