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Abstract
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This paper discusses the antecedents and current progress of an ongoing program of research on the nature, extent, and consequences of children's direct and indirect exposure to violent events and settings. Involvement in such research has sensitized the authors to difficult ethical and methodological challenges that, we believe, merit consideration by mental health scientists and policy markers. Resolution of those challenges has substantive implications for both subsequent research and the application of resultant findings.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
This paper by Lorion and Saltzman summarized current findings about the nature and prevalence of urban violence and gave new information about the consequences of such violence for communities, families, and individuals.
METHODOLOGY:
This research consisted of two separate studies that were quasi-experimental and cross-sectional in design. The focus of both studies was children's exposure to violence in their neighborhoods. The subjects in the first study were the 2,717 children in grades 4, 5 and 6 in a large, metropolitan school district. Students in the district were primarily of minority background (55% African-American, 35% White). This study began as a project to assess substance use among preadolescent and adolescent children, but when the authors noticed the frequency with which violence was mentioned in responses to questions about drug use, they broadened their research topic to include the prevalence of exposure to violence in each child's respective neighborhood. To gather data about this new topic the researchers added 7 items about violence to the Prince George's Drug Interest Survey. Each of the additional questions tapped into how safe or threatened the child felt in his/her neighborhood by dealing with issues such as whether or not the child felt it was safe for kids his/her age to play outside or how often kids in their neighborhood might have seen someone get hurt because of drugs. The researchers coded the children's responses to these 7 items into an index such that higher scores on individual items reflected more awareness of danger and lower scores reflected less. With this information, the researchers classified local neighborhoods into quartiles with Level I representing the least dangerous neighborhood and Level IV representing the most dangerous. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.
In the second study, the authors collaborated with other researchers to study the prevalence and consequences of children's exposure to violence in their neighborhoods. This collaboration resulted in the Community Experience Survey, a shortened form of the Survey of Children's Exposure to Community Violence. This measure was implemented in Washington, DC and New Orleans where it was administered to 170 fifth and sixth graders from schools which had previously been identified as having relatively high levels of community violence. In addition to this instrument, students were also asked to complete the Checklist of Child Distress Symptoms and the Child Depression Inventory, used to establish any potential links between posttraumatic stress and/or depression and exposure to violence. Data for the second study were also analyzed using descriptive statistics.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
It was found in the first part of this study that nearly one in six children in the sample lived in neighborhoods where children their age have "seen people using or selling drugs, have seen people hurt because of drugs, and have themselves been asked to sell drugs" (p. 59). It was also found that nearly 20% of the children believed their same age peers would sell drugs if they were asked to do so. Responses varied by school, with little exposure to violence in some neighborhoods and up to 60% of students being exposed to violence in others. Children who lived in Level IV neighborhoods reported self-use of alcohol and drugs that was 10 times greater than that reported by children in Level I neighborhoods.
In the second part of the study the authors found that nearly 80% of the adolescents reported having been a victim and/or witness to an episode of severe or moderate violence (i.e., being shot to being chased). More than 80% of the students interviewed reported hearing gunshots on a regular basis and almost 2 out of 5 had lost a family member or close friend to murder. The authors noted that a large proportion of the encounters with violence were chronic (occurring at least every month). The researchers reported evidence for a link between exposure to violence and psychological disorders and distress as children from Level IV neighborhoods had significantly higher distress levels than children with less exposure to violence. The authors also found a distinct pattern with respect to gender; girls were more likely to be depressed by the violence they witnessed and boys were more likely to be distressed. The authors planned to use these findings in conjunction with a larger study of children and their parents and the consequences of exposure to violence to be conducted at a later date. As an end result, they hoped to design a program of intervention to deal with the consequences of violence.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors discussed several related issues which they proposed should be studied in future research. One issue they mentioned was the consequences for classmates of students living in violent neighborhoods who may be indirectly affected by violence through their daily interactions with children who recognize violence as a major part of their lives. The authors also suggested that the parents of children living in violent neighborhoods should be studied with reference to the emotional and behavioral consequences of living in these neighborhoods. In particular, the authors suggested that these parents should be studied to assess how they balance the competing demands of leaving home to earn money for the family and staying home to protect the family, and how they cope with distressful decisions about whether or not they let their child go outside to play, to walk to school, and so forth.
It was recommended that future research should be concerned with the consequences of the research on the subjects, with maintaining privacy and anonymity for communities, and with how "informed consent" could be obtained from communities. The authors posited that communities plagued by violence are often subject to stigmas, and they cautioned any future researchers from bringing negative public attention to these areas in ways that may be detrimental to their already fragile existence.
(CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
Louisiana
District of Columbia
Urban Environment
Urban Violence
Urban Youth
Late Childhood
Child Witness
Witnessing Community Violence
Psychological Victimization Effects
Witnessing Violence Effects
Exposure to Violence
Violence Incidence and Prevalence
Community Violence Effects
Language: en |