Effects of Exposure to Community Violence on Internalizing Symptoms: Does Desensitization to Violence Occur in African American Youth?

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 711-719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noni K. Gaylord-Harden ◽  
Jamila A. Cunningham ◽  
Brett Zelencik
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Community Violence ◽  
Internalizing Symptoms ◽  
African American Youth ◽  
Exposure To Community Violence

scholarly journals African-American Youth and Exposure to Community Violence: Supporting Change from the Inside

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Jones Thomas ◽  
Devin Carey ◽  
Kia-Rai Prewitt ◽  
Edna Romero ◽  
Maryse Richards ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
African American ◽  
Community Violence ◽  
African American Youth ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Child Health Outcomes ◽  
Exposure To Community Violence ◽  
Children’S Exposure

Children’s exposure to community violence and its effects on child health outcomes have become a major public health concern in this country, and African-American youth are at greatest risk. Participatory action research, as a vehicle for promoting social justice, is one tool that can be used to address community violence. This article describes the use of focus groups as a way to give African-American youth a voice in providing solutions to violence exposure through the revision of curricula (coping skills and civic engagement). Participants reported a variety of stressors, including exposure to violence, and a lack of coping strategies and adult support for processing violence. Suggestions for curriculum revisions are included. The process of conducting groups, lessons learned from the process, and implications for researchers interested in promoting social justice are discussed.

Individual Differences in Patterns of Community Violence Exposure and Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors

2019 ◽  
pp. 088626051986714
Author(s):  
Sharon F. Lambert ◽  
Rachel M. Tache ◽  
Sabrina R. Liu ◽  
Karen Nylund-Gibson ◽  
Nicholas S. Ialongo
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Aggressive Behavior ◽  
Community Violence ◽  
Internalizing Symptoms ◽  
Violence Exposure ◽  
Behavioral Adjustment ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Community Violence Exposure ◽  
Exposure To Community Violence ◽  
Internalizing And Externalizing

Youth community violence has been linked with depressive and anxious symptoms, and aggressive behavior; however, little research has examined different combinations of emotional and behavioral adjustment among community-violence-exposed youth, or individual characteristics that may account for different patterns of emotional and behavioral adjustment in community-violence-exposed youth. This research used person-centered methods to examine how gender, temperament characteristics, and prior exposure to community violence were linked with classes of community violence exposure and internalizing and externalizing adjustment among a sample of urban African American youth. Participants were 464 African American adolescents (46.7% female; mean age = 14.83, SD = .43) who reported their community violence exposure in Grade 9 and for whom reports of depressive and anxious symptoms, and aggressive behavior were available. Latent class analysis identified four classes of adolescents distinguished by their exposure to community violence exposure and internalizing and externalizing behavior. The two classes with high community violence exposure were characterized by internalizing symptoms or aggressive behavior; the two classes with low community violence exposure had low internalizing symptoms with moderate aggression or had all moderate symptoms. These community violence adjustment classes were distinguished by gender, history of community violence exposure, behavioral inhibition, and fight–flight–freeze systems. Findings highlight heterogeneity in internalizing and externalizing responses of community-violence-exposed youth and suggest factors that explain community violence exposure, repeat exposure, and responses to community violence exposure.

Exposure to Community Violence Among Low-Income African American Youth in Chicago: A Latent Class Analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 1116-1132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dexter R. Voisin ◽  
Dong Ha Kim ◽  
Lynn Michalopoulos ◽  
Sadiq Patel
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Community Violence ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Home Ownership ◽  
Future Orientation ◽  
African American Youth ◽  
School Bonding ◽  
Exposure To Community Violence ◽  
Bisexual And Transgender

African American youth are exposed to some of the highest rates of exposure to community violence. However, few studies have explored factors related to exposures and various subtypes of exposures to community violence (i.e., no exposure, witnessing only and being a witness/victim). Among a matched sample of 129 African American youth and their caregivers, no exposure to community violence was correlated with being heterosexual versus being a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) person, having parents who owned their homes versus rented, and having higher authoritarian parenting attitudes. In addition, being a witness/victim of community violence was correlated with any youth substance use, lower levels of school bonding, having less future orientation, less parental home ownership, and an adverse family history. Practice and programmatic considerations are discussed based on these findings.

scholarly journals Building a Contextually-Relevant Understanding of Resilience among African American Youth Exposed to Community Violence

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 330-339
Author(s):  
Briana Woods-Jaeger ◽  
Emily Siedlik ◽  
Amber Adams ◽  
Kaitlin Piper ◽  
Paige O’Connor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Community Violence ◽  
African American Youth
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