Exposure to Violence: An In-Depth Analysis From Adolescence to Early-Adulthood

Abstract

As the leading cause of death for young African American males, violence is a severe public health problem. This dissertation focuses on exposure to violence (ETV). ETV is defined here as family conflict, witnessing violence in the community, and victimization. I found that being exposed to violence during emerging adulthood (ages 20-23 years) is associated with increasing rates of substance use during early-adulthood (ages 29-32 years). Moreover, I found that just two instances of ETV distinguished respondents with an increasing rate of substance use and those with no change. Using a latent profile analysis approach, I found that individuals could be grouped into low, medium, and high ETV profiles. These three ETV profiles from late-adolescence predicted violence perpetration. Specifically, individuals in the high ETV profile were more likely to have higher violence perpetration in early-adulthood compared to those with a low ETV latent profile. No differences were found among these three ETV latent profiles and depressive symptoms or substance use. The findings from this dissertation help to better understand the consequences of violence victimization and inform efforts to reduce them. Given the long-term consequences of being exposed to violence, spanning several developmental stages, we learn that ETV can be a serious and traumatic experience, deserving serious attention from health practitioners. By investigating ETV using a latent profiles, we learn that it is possible to have multiple concurrent exposures to violence. This analytical approach is novel for studying ETV, and is significant because it allows researchers to study ETV in a particularly sensitive and nuanced manner. This is especially important given how little exposure to violence is needed to increase one’s risk for long-term consequences. This more nuanced approach to investigation may also decrease the odds for subsequent repercussions to exposure to violence, and interventions can be tailored for different patterns and types of exposures. These findings are important because we start to learn how multiple forms of violence may cluster together to form risk. They can help provide a framework for studying how different profiles of exposure may change throughout their life. This approach also allows us to study if different patterns of distinctive types of violence exposure early in life contribute to health various consequences later in life.