Search Results (18)

Background: Suicidal ideation among adolescents remains a major public health challenge. Exposure to neighborhood violence is associated with increased risk of mental health distress and school-related vulnerabilities. This study investigates the predictors of suicidal ideation among U.S. adolescents who have witnessed neighborhood violence. Methods: Data were drawn from the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), a nationally representative survey of high school students in the United States. A subsample of 3495 adolescents who reported witnessing neighborhood violence was analyzed. Key variables included sociodemographic characteristics, mental health symptoms, perceived school safety, and experiences of victimization. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with suicidal ideation, defined as seriously considering suicide in the past year. Analyses were conducted using Jamovi (version 2.6), with statistical significance set at p < 0.05. Results: The prevalence of suicidal ideation in the sample was 34.2%. Bisexual adolescents had significantly higher odds of suicidal ideation compared to heterosexual peers (OR = 2.34, p < 0.001). Depressive symptoms were the strongest predictor (OR = 7.51, p < 0.001). Both perceived lack of safety at school and differences in ethnic and population backgrounds were significant. Black and Hispanic/Latino adolescents had lower odds compared to White peers. Conclusions: Findings highlight sexual identity, depressive symptoms, school safety concerns, and ethnic and population background differences as key correlates of suicidal ideation. Culturally responsive, trauma-informed interventions are urgently needed for youth exposed to community violence. Full article

Background/Objectives: Although the extant literature has recognized the importance of neighborhood contexts for adolescent alcohol and tobacco use, less is known about the effects of exposure to neighborhood violence on the prevalence and timing of initiation across gender and race/ethnic groups. Methods: This secondary analysis of administrative and survey data from a natural experiment in Denver examines the influence of neighborhood contexts on the health and well-being of 1100 Latino/a and African American adolescents. Cox Proportional Hazard models were used to (1) estimate the effects of exposure to neighborhood violence on the prevalence and timing of adolescent alcohol and tobacco use initiation; (2) examine gender and race/ethnic variations in alcohol and tobacco use initiation after controlling for adolescent, caregiver, household, and other neighborhood characteristics; and (3) test for threshold effects. Results: Prevalence rates among all adolescents were 12.9% for alcohol use initiation and 13.7% for tobacco use initiation but were 14.6% and 17.3%, respectively, among adolescents exposed to higher levels of neighborhood violence. The average age of initiation was 16.1 and 15.6 years for alcohol and tobacco use, respectively, but 2–8 months earlier for adolescents exposed to higher levels of neighborhood violence. Heightened exposure to neighborhood violence increased the hazards of alcohol use initiation by 32% for all adolescents and 38% for adolescent males. The hazards of tobacco use initiation were 1.3 to 1.5 times higher for male, Latino/a, and African American adolescents. Exposure to neighborhood violence suggests threshold effects of diminishing returns on adolescent tobacco use initiation. Conclusions: Findings underscore the need to examine gender and race/ethnic group differences in adolescent alcohol and tobacco initiation, the multiple pathways to such use, and interventions aimed at reducing neighborhood violence. Full article

School bullying represents a widespread expression of violence in the peer context. Guided by the social-ecological model, this study investigated the longitudinal and transactional pathways linking domestic and neighborhood/community violence exposure (through direct victimization and witnessing), self-serving cognitive distortions (CDs), and school bullying perpetration. Furthermore, consistent with the previous literature, we tested the cognitive desensitization process that could develop in response to chronically violent contexts. Two four-wave cross-lagged panel mediation models were tested in a sample of 778 high school students (28.1% males; M_age [Time 1; T1] = 14.20, SD = 0.58). The results showed differential effects of multiple contexts and forms of violence exposure, with domestic violence victimization and community violence witnessing being associated with self-serving CDs and bullying perpetration over time. Moreover, significant associations between CDs and bullying perpetration over time were found, with bidirectional effects for each of these longitudinal patterns. Finally, self-serving CDs significantly mediated the relationships between both domestic violence victimization and community violence witnessing and school bullying perpetration. These findings highlight the need to consider school bullying as a social phenomenon stemming from a complex and bidirectional interplay between individuals and the environments they inhabit, confirming a basic postulate that “violence breeds violence”. Full article

The health and life outcomes of individuals are intertwined with the context in which they grow and live. The totality of exposures one experiences affects health in the short term and throughout the life course. Environmental exposure to multiple contaminants can increase stress levels in individuals and neighborhoods with psychosocial stressors such as crime, drug and alcohol misuse, and violence also taking a toll on individual and neighborhood wellbeing. In addition, the availability, organization, and quality of local institutions and infrastructure all affect health in the short and long term. The role of these factors in endometrial cancer will be explored in this paper. In addition, policy implications regarding lead, chronic physiological stress, and endometrial cancer will be explored to ascertain the impact of these factors on at-risk women. Full article

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) have been associated with a higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and premature mortality in adults. OBJECTIVES: We evaluated the associations between ACEs and heart diseases among children in the United States. METHODS: Data on children ages 0 to 17 years reported by parents/guardians to have current heart conditions were analyzed. Using Stata version 17 software, descriptive statistics were generated for the demographic characteristics and the various health outcomes using the chi-square of independence. Multivariate logistic regression models were employed to determine the associations between ACEs and heart conditions, the severity of heart conditions, and overall health status. RESULTS: There were 826 children with current heart conditions from a total of 68,753 surveyed children. This corresponded to an estimated 780,000 (1.13%) children living with heart conditions in the U.S. On multivariate logistic models, several ACEs, including household economic hardship, parental/guardian’s alcohol/drug abuse, severe mental health illness of parents/guardians, racial/ethnic discrimination, exposure to neighborhood violence, and accumulation of two or more ACEs, were significantly associated with heart diseases among children. Though the accumulation of two or more ACEs did not have a significant association with the severity of heart condition, it was significantly associated with caregiver reports of undesirable overall health status. CONCLUSIONS: ACEs are significantly associated with heart conditions among children and contribute to unfavorable overall health status among children with heart conditions in the U.S. There is a need for policies and programs that will promptly identify ACEs and mitigate their negative impact on children. Full article

Columbus, Ohio is one of the more prosperous, well-educated, and progressive cities in the United States. However, it ranks as the second worst life expectancy at birth, has a census tract wealth gap (27-year disparity), and one of the higher infant mortality rates in the country. These data suggest that there are likely several high-risk, vulnerable neighborhoods in Columbus with residents experiencing disparate and adverse outcomes. Illustrative of this fact are studies that have examined the social processes and mechanisms through which neighborhood contexts are at the forefront, including exposures to chemical stressors such as particulate matter (PM_2.5) as well as non-chemical stressors including violence, social determinants of health, zoning, and land use policies. It is documented that disparate and adverse outcomes are magnified in the vulnerable neighborhoods on the Near East Side as compared to Columbus city proper, Franklin County and/or the state of Ohio. As such, we developed a nuanced community engagement framework to identify potential environmental hazards associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes in those census tracts. The refined framework uses a blended version of traditional community-based participatory research (CBPR) models and is referred to as E⁶, Enhancing Environmental Endeavors via e-Equity, Education, and Empowerment. Full article

Much research has documented the contagiousness of violence. Some of this work has focused on contagiousness as operationalized by the spread across geographical space, while other work has examined the spread within social networks. While the latter body of work struggles with incomplete network data, the former constitutes a theoretical mismatch with how violence should spread. Theory instead strongly suggests that violence contagion should diffuse through everyday mobility networks rather than just adjacently through geographical space. Beyond contagion itself, I argue that neighborhoods connected through mobility networks should serve as useful short-term sensors in predicting imminent violence because these sets of residents tend to experience shared environmental exposures, which may induce synchrony in the likelihood of violence. I explore this topic and these relationships using violent crime data from the three largest U.S. cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Using two-way fixed effects models, I test whether or not violence in mobility-connected alter neighborhoods in the preceding hour predicts violence in an ego neighborhood in the next hour. Across all three jurisdictions, I find that recent violence in the neighborhoods to which a neighborhood is connected through mobility ties can strongly predict that neighborhood’s odds of subsequent violence. Furthermore, spatial proximity has no significant effect on the likelihood of violent crime after controlling for mobility ties. I conclude by arguing that mobility patterns are an important pathway in the prediction of violence. Full article

The present study proposes and examines the pathways from exposure to community violence to bullying victimization through the influences of depression, exposure to peer delinquency, and drug use among 638 African American adolescents (aged 12–22) from low-resourced neighborhoods in Chicago’s Southside. The study found that African American adolescents who were exposed to community violence were likely at risk of bullying victimization, depression, exposure to peer delinquency, and drug use. Depression can heighten the risk of bullying victimization. These findings have implications for future research. Full article

Identifying how, when, and under what conditions exposure to political conflict is associated with youth mental health problems is critical to developing programming to help youth exposed to various forms of political violence. The current study uses Time Varying Effects Modeling (TVEM) to examine how relations between exposure to ethno-politically motivated antisocial behavior and mental health problems change as a function of age in a sample of youth from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Young people (N = 583, M_age 16.51 wave 1, 17.23 wave 2) self-reported their exposure to sectarian antisocial behavior, nonsectarian antisocial behavior, and mental health problems as part of a longitudinal study of youth across multiple neighborhoods in Belfast. The results suggest mental health problems and associations with exposure to sectarian antisocial behavior change in nonlinear patterns throughout adolescence, with the strongest links between exposure to political conflict and mental health between ages 16 and 19. Significant relations between nonsectarian antisocial behavior and mental health problems were not indicated for the full sample but the results suggested a relation emerged in later adolescence for Protestant youth, the historical majority group. The value of this exploratory approach to examining relations between key context and psychological variables for youth in contexts of political tension and violence is discussed. Full article

This study examines the impact of family and neighborhood factors on physical and psychological abuse across three developmental stages of children: early childhood (age 3), young school age (age 5), and middle childhood (age 9). Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal national cohort study of children from 20 urban U.S. cities, are used. Path analysis is employed to investigate the longitudinal relationships between family and neighborhood context variables and abuse risk, as well as the importance of different factors at key developmental stages. Economic hardship, maternal substance use, intimate partner violence, and exposure to community violence are found to be related to child abuse risk regardless of developmental stage, while maternal depression and neighborhood informal social control are found to have impacts only within certain child development stages. Findings suggest the need for early intervention and prevention strategies that specifically target economic hardship, poverty, intimate partner violence, and exposure to community violence. Full article

Background: Research suggests that intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with childhood maltreatment and violence exposure within the neighborhood context. This study examined the role of child maltreatment and violence exposure on intimate partner violence, with the moderating effects of mental disorders (IPV) among US Black women. Methods: Data from the National Survey of American Life (NSAL), the largest and most complete sample on the mental health of US Blacks, and the first representative sample of Caribbean Blacks residing in the United States was used to address the study objectives. Descriptive statistics, chi-square test of independence, t-test, and logistic regression procedures were used to analyze the data. Results: Bivariate results indicate an association between child abuse and intimate partner victimization among US Black women. Witnessing violence as a child as well as neighborhood violence exposure was also related to IPV but shown to differ between African American and Caribbean Black women. Multivariate findings confirmed the influence of mental disorders and social conditions on US Black women’s risk for IPV. Moderating effects of child maltreatment and mental disorders in association with adult IPV were not found. Conclusions: The study addressed the short and long-term impact of child maltreatment and the contribution to the cycle of intimate violence among US Black women including African American and Caribbean Blacks. The study suggests the need for prevention and intervention efforts to improve structural conditions for at-risk populations and communities predisposed to violence and other negative outcomes. Possibilities for future research are also discussed. Full article

Air pollution is a major contributor to human morbidity and mortality, potentially exacerbated by COVID-19, and a threat to planetary health. Participatory research, with a structural violence framework, illuminates exposure inequities and refines mitigation strategies. Home to profitable oil and shipping industries, several census tracts in Richmond, CA are among the most heavily impacted by aggregate burdens statewide. Formally trained researchers from the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health (CERCH) partnered with the RYSE youth justice center to conduct youth participatory action research on air quality justice. Staff engaged five youth researchers in: (1) collaborative research using a network of passive air monitors to quantify neighborhood disparities in nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and sulfur dioxide (SO₂), noise pollution and community risk factors; (2) training in environmental health literacy and professional development; and (3) interpretation of findings, community outreach and advocacy. Inequities in ambient NO₂, but not SO₂, were observed. Census tracts with higher Black populations had the highest NO₂. Proximity to railroads and major roadways were associated with higher NO₂. Greenspace was associated with lower NO₂, suggesting investment may be conducive to improved air quality, among many additional benefits. Youth improved in measures of empowerment, and advanced community education via workshops, Photovoice, video, and ”zines”. Full article

Stress has been shown to adversely affect pregnancy outcomes. Neighborhood crime rates may serve as one publicly available social determinant of health for pregnancy studies that use registry or electronic health record datasets in which individual-level stress data are not available. We sought to determine whether neighborhood violent crime incidents were associated with measured perceived stress in a largely minority, urban pregnancy cohort. We performed a secondary analysis of the 1309 Philadelphia residents participating in the Motherhood and Microbiome cohort (n = 2000) with both neighborhood violent crime and Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14) data. Generalized linear mixed models accounting for confounding variables and geographic clustering demonstrated that, regardless of race, women with the highest quartile of neighborhood violent crime had significantly elevated odds of high stress compared to women with lower crime. We also found that Black women were more likely to have both the highest quartile of neighborhood violent crime and high stress than non-Black women. Overall, this study demonstrates that neighborhood violent crime is associated with perceived stress in pregnancy. Given disparate exposure to crime and prenatal stress by race, future work is warranted to determine whether urban neighborhood violence and/or stress reduction strategies would improve birth outcome racial disparities. Full article

Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) have been associated with a greater prevalence of risky behaviors and chronic health conditions, such as diabetes in adulthood. While adolescents with risk taking behaviors experience worsening of diabetic metabolic control, it is yet to be determined whether glycemic management in children and adolescents is negatively and independently influenced by ACEs. This study examines the relationship between ACEs in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1DM) and glycemic control, BMI and lipids. For such children, we hypothesized that hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) is positively correlated with ACE scores. Parents of children (age 2–18 years) with T1DM completed a validated ACE questionnaire. The associations between parent and child ACE score and HbA1c, lipids and BMI z-scores were assessed using linear regression. The prevalence of any ACE was 27.9% among children and 49.0% among parents. HbA1c was significantly higher in children who had exposure to three or more ACEs (β:0.63 (4.5 mmol/mol); p = 0.02), in those who had a parent exposed to four or more ACEs (β:0.87 (7.2 mmol/mol); p = 0.03), in children who had exposure to household incarceration (β:0.62 (4.4 mmol/mol); p = 0.05) and children who witnessed or had been victim of violence in the neighborhood (β:0.71 (5.4 mmol/mol); p = 0.02). ACEs were highly prevalent among children with T1DM and had a positive association with glycemic control. Full article

Background: Children are exposed to chemical and non-chemical stressors from their built, natural, and social environments. Research is needed to advance our scientific understanding of non-chemical stressors, evaluate how they alter the biological response to a chemical stressor, and determine how they impact children’s health and well-being. To do this, we conducted a state-of-the-science review of non-chemical stressors found in a child’s social environment. Methods: Studies eligible for inclusion in this review were identified through a search of the peer-reviewed literature using PubMed and PsycINFO. Combinations of words associated with non-chemical stressors and children were used to form search strings. Filters were used to limit the search to studies published in peer-reviewed journals from 2000–2016 and written in English. Publications found using the search strings and filters went through two rounds of screening. Results: A total of 146 studies met the inclusion criteria. From these studies, 245 non-chemical stressors were evaluated. The non-chemical stressors were then organized into 13 general topic areas: acculturation, adverse childhood experiences, economic, education, family dynamics, food, greenspace, neighborhood, social, stress, urbanicity, violence, and other. Additional information on health outcomes, studies evaluating both chemical and non-chemical stressors, and animal studies are provided. This review provides evidence that non-chemical stressors found in a child’s social environment do influence their health and well-being in both beneficial (e.g., salutatory effects of greenspace and social support) and adverse (e.g., poor relationships between health and selected non-chemical stressors such as economics, educational attainment, exposure to violence, stress) ways. Conclusions: This literature review identified a paucity of studies addressing the combined effects of chemical and non-chemical stressors and children’s health and well-being. This literature review was further complicated by inconsistencies in terminology, methodologies, and the value of non-chemical stressor research in different scientific disciplines. Despite these limitations, this review showed the importance of considering non-chemical stressors from a child’s social environment when addressing children’s environmental health considerations. Full article