Elsevier

Child Abuse & Neglect

Volume 98, December 2019, 104182
Child Abuse & Neglect

Research article
Childhood abuse and community violence: Risk factors for youth violence

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104182Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

To investigate the joint effect of child abuse and neglect (CAN) and community violence (CV) on adolescents with peers that commit youth violence (YV).

Methods

This is a school-based cross-sectional study of 699 students enrolled in four public and nine private schools in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Participants were selected through a complex cluster sampling procedure. CAN was identified using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). Exposure to CV was assessed by asking students if they have witnessed cases of lethal violence in the community. YV was measured indirectly through questions about having friends who have committed acts of crime. Multivariate logistic models were used to study the effects of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse and emotional and physical neglect in childhood on YV, controlled for confounders, according to different levels of CV.

Results

Emotional abuse OR = 3.32 (CI 95%: 1.79–6.17), sexual abuse OR = 2.33 (CI 95%: 1.20–4.54), and physical neglect OR = 1.81 (CI 95%: 1.02–3.20) increased the odds of YV in adolescents, whether cooccurring with CV or not. Physical abuse OR = 3.95 (CI 95%: 2.29 - 6.80) and emotional neglect OR = 2.93 (CI 95%: 1.83–4.72) are only risk factors for YV involvement when associated with CV.

Conclusions

These findings highlight the relevance of CAN and CV as risk factors for YV and the potential increase in adolescents’ vulnerability when exposed to both. Policies aiming at preventing and dealing with CAN are essential strategies to reduce YV, especially in areas with high levels of CV.

Section snippets

Background

Community violence (CV) is a public health problem that is hard to cope with (David-Ferdon et al., 2016; Krug, Dahlberg, Mercy, Zwi, & Lozano, 2002; World Health Organization, 2014, 2015). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), CV is a type of interpersonal violence occurring among those who do not have an intimate relationship with one another and includes, among several kinds of incidents, homicides, assaults, street fights and drug trafficking (Krug et al., 2002). In 2012, an

Study design, sample selection strategy and data collection

This is a school-based survey involving second-year high school students from public and private schools in the IX administrative region (IX-AR) of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro. The IX-AR is a densely populated urban area encompassing 190,000 inhabitants of low, middle and high socioeconomic status, living in a mix of fully urbanized areas containing buildings and regular houses, alongside slums (favelas) consisting of dwellings that are poorly served by urban amenities and facilities (

Results

Table 1 shows that slightly more than a half of the students were female, almost 80% were 15–17 years old (mean age: 17.3 years (S.D. 0.08), range 15–29 years old), and half were either brown/mestizos or black. Very few adolescents had lost their parents to abandonment or death. The proportion of mothers with 16 years of schooling or above was just about the same as those with less than eight. The prevalence of YV was only higher among males. There were no statistically significant differences

Discussion

The results show that experiencing CAN and CV dramatically increases the risk of adolescents’ peers committing acts of YV. This finding corroborates the underlying hypothesis postulating a combined disadvantage of being exposed to both regarding engagement in violence in adolescence, reinforcing previous literature suggesting a connection between different types of violence throughout life (Dodge et al., 1990; Topitzes, Mersky, & Reynolds, 2012; Van Wert et al., 2017; Vidal et al., 2017; Widom,

Conclusions

Even though CAN and living in violent environments may be considered independent risk factors, those exposed to both forms of violence seem to present a much higher vulnerability to engaging in YV or co-offending. These findings emphasize that policies aiming to prevent CAN are an essential strategy not only to prevent mental and physical consequences of these important childhood adverse experiences but also to reduce YV, especially in areas with high rates of CV. Beyond this piece of evidence,

Declaration of Competing Interest

None

Acknowledgement

This research was funded by a grant from the Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support of the State of Rio de Janeiro (E-26/010.002590/2014). We wish to thank the students who participated in this study. M.E.R. was partially supported by the Brazilian National Research Council (Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa, CNPq), grant number 301381/2017-8. C.L.M was partially supported by the Brazilian National Research Council (Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa, CNPq), grant number: 302663/2015-0; and

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