Do Age Effects on Youth Secondary Exposure to Violence Vary across Social Context?

Abstract

Many studies have documented an increasing prevalence of secondary exposure to community violence from childhood through young adulthood. Yet inconsistencies exist in the findings, with some studies reporting a weak association, or no association, between age and exposure to community violence. This study investigates whether the disparate study findings reflect unmeasured but consequential neighborhood dynamics for the relationship between age and exposure to violence. Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, this study contributes to the literature by examining variability in the relationship between age and exposure to community violence across neighborhood context. The results of hierarchical Poisson models support the hypothesis that age disparities in exposure to violence are attenuated in more disadvantaged neighborhoods. Results further indicate that high levels of community violence are responsible for the suppression of individual variation in age in extremely disadvantaged communities.