文章基本信息

标题：Individual, Family Background, and Contextual Explanations of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Youths’ Exposure to Violence
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作者：Gregory M. Zimmerman ; Steven F. Messner
期刊名称：American journal of public health
印刷版ISSN：0090-0036
出版年度：2013
卷号：103
期号：3
页码：435-442
DOI：10.2105/AJPH.2012.300931
语种：English
出版社：American Public Health Association
摘要：We used data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods to examine the extent to which individual, family, and contextual factors account for the differential exposure to violence associated with race/ethnicity among youths. Logistic hierarchical item response models on 2344 individuals nested within 80 neighborhoods revealed that the odds of being exposed to violence were 74% and 112% higher for Hispanics and Blacks, respectively, than for Whites. Appreciable portions of the Hispanic–White gap (33%) and the Black–White gap (53%) were accounted for by family background factors, individual differences, and neighborhood factors. The findings imply that programs aimed at addressing the risk factors for exposure to violence and alleviating the effects of exposure to violence may decrease racial/ethnic disparities in exposure to violence and its consequences. Homicide is a leading cause of death among young Americans, accounting for 14.8% of deaths among persons aged 10 to 24 years. 1 Yet homicide reflects only a small portion of adolescent violence. Estimates indicate that the ratio of nonfatal to fatal assaults is as high as 100 to 1, 2 and studies have found that between 50% and 96% of urban youths have witnessed some form of community violence (e.g., seeing a shooting or assault, hearing a gunshot) in their lifetime. 3–6 The rate of secondary exposure to community violence is of particular concern to the medical and public health community because interdisciplinary research has consistently documented the negative health consequences for youths exposed to chronic violence. 7–9 Recognizing the epidemic levels of exposure to violence faced by children and adolescents across the United States, and the consequences associated with such exposure, the US associate attorney general announced the Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence in 2011 as part of the attorney general’s Defending Childhood Initiative. The task force is composed of academic experts, practitioners, youth advocates, and clinicians, and follows the 2002 workshop entitled “Children Exposed to Violence: Current Status, Gaps, and Research Priorities.” This workshop was funded by 10 federal agencies, including the National Institute of Justice, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and attended by violence researchers from diverse academic backgrounds across the United States. Relying on research in public health, psychology, criminology, and sociology, the workshop identified various consequences of exposure to community violence, including mental health effects (posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, low self-esteem, disassociation); psychobiological, physiological, and neuroendocrine effects (elevated heart rate, sleep disturbance, altered cortisol production, slower pubertal development); and psychosocial effects (substance use, conduct disorder, aggression, violence). 10 The task force also concluded that there are substantial variations in estimates of exposure to community violence in the literature, although most studies have examined the prevalence of violence exposure in high-risk areas. 10 Not surprisingly, research has found a strong correlation between exposure to violence and neighborhood conditions such as poverty. 8,11,12 Understanding the individual and contextual pathways to violence exposure in the general population, as well as in the urban community, is necessary for alleviating its damaging effects. 10 Subsequent interdisciplinary research has continued to identify individual, family, school, and community factors associated with exposure to violence. 8,11,12 One of the strongest individual covariates of exposure to community violence is race/ethnicity. Several studies have reported higher rates of exposure to violence among racial and ethnic minorities, particularly Blacks and Hispanics, than among Whites. 4,13–15 In addition, these racial/ethnic disparities persist when youths’ exposure to violence is self-reported or reported by a primary caregiver. 16 Indeed, research has demonstrated that race/ethnicity is among the strongest predictors of exposure to violence, whether the informant is a parent or a child. 8 The etiology of these disparities remains a mystery because empirical evidence has not attempted to explain differences in exposure to violence by race or ethnicity. Individual-level studies have examined family characteristics (e.g., parents’ education and income level, family structure, parent–child conflict, parental supervision) as potential covariates of exposure to violence, 3–6,15,17 but these studies have not quantified the role that family factors could play in explaining differences in exposure to violence across race/ethnicity. Studies have also found that youths reporting the highest rates of exposure to violence tend to live in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. 4,18–20 Yet with some recent and notable exceptions, 11,12 multilevel analyses of exposure to violence are sparse, and community influences on exposure to violence are poorly understood. 8 Recognizing these limitations, we used a multilevel framework to examine the extent to which the differential exposure to violence associated with race/ethnicity among youths can be accounted for by a constellation of individual, family, and neighborhood factors.