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Chicago Youths’ Exposure to Community Violence: Contextualizing Spatial Dynamics of Violence and the Relationship With Psychological Functioning
Author(s) -
DaViera Andrea L.,
Roy Amanda L.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1002/ajcp.12405
Subject(s) - psychology , context (archaeology) , anxiety , poison control , ethnic group , developmental psychology , health psychology , mental health , suicide prevention , injury prevention , clinical psychology , trait , public health , medicine , environmental health , geography , psychiatry , sociology , nursing , archaeology , anthropology , computer science , programming language
This study explores where and when community violence exposure ( CVE ) matters for psychological functioning in a sample of low‐income, racial/ethnic minority youth ( M) age = 16.17, 55% female, 69% Black, and 31% Non‐Black/Latinx) living in Chicago. CVE was measured with violent crime data that were geocoded in terms of distance from youths’ home and school addresses, and then calculated in terms of three distinct spatial dynamics: chronicity, pervasiveness, and spatial proximity. These measures reflect indirect/objective CVE across different conceptualizations of time, space, and neighborhood context. We tested the relationship between each CVE measure and trait anxiety and behavioral and cognitive dysregulation while controlling for youth‐reported, direct violent victimization (e.g., being attacked) to examine how indirect/objective CVE occurring within youths’ neighborhood contexts matters beyond direct/subjective violence exposure. Results revealed that long‐term chronic, pervasive, and spatially proximal CVE was related to higher levels of behavioral dysfunction. In contrast, CVE within home‐ and school‐based neighborhoods interacted to predict trait anxiety; youth living in low‐crime neighborhoods and attending schools in high‐crime neighborhoods had the highest rates of trait anxiety. Measuring CVE within both home and school neighborhoods at specific spatial measurements and time frames is critical to understand and prevent the consequences of CVE .