Elsevier

Social Science Research

Volume 49, January 2015, Pages 314-326
Social Science Research

Exposure to violence, substance use, and neighborhood context

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.08.015Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Exposure to violence increases the likelihood of adolescent marijuana use.

  • Exposure to violence does not influence adolescent alcohol use or binge drinking.

  • Neighborhood norms regarding teen drug use did not affect adolescent substance use.

  • The effect of victimization on marijuana use is greater in more disadvantaged areas.

Abstract

Adolescent exposure to violence and substance use are both public health problems, but how neighborhood context contributes to these outcomes is unclear. This study uses prospective data from 1416 adolescents to examine the direct and interacting influences of victimization and neighborhood factors on adolescent substance use. Based on hierarchical Bernoulli regression models that controlled for prior substance use and multiple individual-level factors, exposure to violence significantly increased the likelihood of marijuana use but not alcohol use or binge drinking. There was little evidence that community norms regarding adolescent substance use influenced rates of substance use or moderated the impact of victimization. Community disadvantage did not directly impact substance use, but the relationship between victimization and marijuana use was stronger for those in neighborhoods with greater disadvantage. The results suggest that victimization is particularly likely to affect adolescents’ marijuana use, and that this relationship may be contingent upon neighborhood economic conditions.

Introduction

The Department of Justice considers exposure to violence among children and adolescents to be a “national crisis” which must be better understood and more effectively addressed (The United States Department of Justice, 2012). This concern stems from research indicating that a large proportion of youth witness violence perpetrated against others or are themselves victims of aggressive attacks at some point during their lives (Finkelhor et al., 2009, Truman, 2011). Among 14–17 year olds, an age group particularly likely to be exposed to violence, the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence indicated that 48% had witnessed violence in the year prior to the survey, 47% had been personally assaulted, and 19% had been injured during an assault (Finkelhor et al., 2009). Research has also shown that exposure to violence can have negative and often severe consequences, impairing social relationships, academic performance, and mental health, and can lead to aggressive and violent behaviors as well (Begle et al., 2011, Buka et al., 2001, Finkelhor et al., 2011, Gorman-Smith and Tolan, 1998, Lynch, 2003, Macmillan, 2001, Schwab-Stone et al., 1995).

The effects of violent victimization on tobacco, alcohol, and substance use during adolescence have also been evidenced (Kilpatrick et al., 2000, Sullivan et al., 2004, Zinzow et al., 2009), but this body of research is relatively under-developed compared to studies examining other types of behaviors stemming from exposure to violence. Furthermore, few studies have sought to identify factors which may moderate the relationship between exposure to violence and substance use (for exceptions, see: Hay and Evans, 2006, Lin et al., 2011, O’Donnell et al., 2002, Sullivan et al., 2004), which limits our ability to identify the individuals most at risk for drinking and drug use following victimization.

This study seeks to increase our understanding of the relationship between exposure to violence and substance use. We examine the effect of experiencing and witnessing violence on subsequent alcohol and marijuana use, the most frequently used substances among adolescents (Johnston et al., 2011), as well as on binge drinking, using prospective data from youth and adolescents living in Chicago. In addition, we investigate the degree to which two neighborhood characteristics – economic disadvantage and community norms regarding adolescent substance use – moderate the impact of victimization on substance use. To date, there has been minimal attention paid to the potential for neighborhood context to affect the relationship between exposure to violence in the community and substance use by adolescents (with the exception of Browning and Erickson, 2009), despite research indicating that economically and socially disadvantaged neighborhoods have higher rates of violence (Anderson, 1999, De Coster et al., 2006, Shaw and McKay, 1942) and victimization (Browning and Erickson, 2009, Gibson et al., 2009, Sampson and Lauritsen, 1994) compared to more advantaged areas. The current study will explore whether or not residence in such areas affects alcohol use, binge drinking, and marijuana use among adolescents, and the degree to which neighborhood factors ameliorate or exacerbate the likelihood that victims will engage in substance use.

Section snippets

Neighborhood influences on adolescent substance use

Both theoretical and empirical work suggest that neighborhood context influences adolescent delinquency and drug use (Anderson, 1999, Elliott et al., 1996, Sampson et al., 1997, Shaw and McKay, 1942, Wilson, 1987). Nonetheless, some research has failed to document significant direct effects of contextual factors on delinquency (Bernburg and Thorlindsson, 2007, Beyers et al., 2003, De Coster et al., 2006, Elliott et al., 1996, Maimon and Browning, 2010, Sampson et al., 2005). Such results have

Sample

This study relies on data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) (Earls et al., 2002), a multiple-component study examining how neighborhood context impacts children’s development. To gather information on social processes across diverse communities, Chicago’s 847 census tracts were divided into 343 neighborhood clusters (NCs) that were geographically contiguous. The Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS) followed multiple cohorts of youth and their primary caregivers

Results

The analysis sample was approximately 14 years old at wave two when exposure to violence was measured, 49% male, and predominately of minority race/ethnicity, with 48% reporting their race/ethnicity as Hispanic, 32% African American, and 20% Caucasian/other race or ethnicity (see Table 1). Youth reported an average of about two forms of victimization. About 43% of the sample reported consuming alcohol at least once in the past year, 12% reported binge drinking at least once in the past month,

Discussion and conclusion

This paper examined the inter-relationship between adolescent exposure to violence, neighborhood cultural norms and structural disadvantage, and substance use using a diverse sample of adolescents and rigorous analyses of prospective data that controlled for prior substance use as well as multiple individual-level factors that can influence substance use. To summarize the findings, victimization increased the likelihood of marijuana use at wave three, controlling for prior use, but

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by Grant R01DA30387-01 from the National Institute of Drug Abuse. Points of view or opinions stated in this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the funding agency. The data used in this study were made available by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Neither the collectors of the original data nor the Consortium bear any responsibility for the analyses or conclusions presented

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