Effects of Different Types of Childhood Victimization on Health Outcomes: A Study of African American Young Adults in Washington, D.C.

Abstract

Some children experience violence and trauma with effects lasting into adulthood. We examine how five types of childhood exposure to violence (ETV) affect the current depression, sleep habits, and drug use of 638 African American youth ages 18 to 25, in Washington, D.C. We correlated childhood exposure to conventional crime, child maltreatment, peer/sibling victimization, sexual victimization, and witnessing crime/indirect (WC/I) victimization with depressive symptoms, depressive moods, trouble sleeping, current drug use, lifetime alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use, and current ATOD use problems. Depressive symptoms and lifetime ATOD use were significantly correlated with each childhood ETV measure; depressive moods with WC/I and peer/sibling victimization, trouble sleeping with childhood maltreatment and current drug use, and problems with ATOD with childhood sexual victimization. Specific types of ETV are correlated with different behavioral and health outcomes in young adulthood and these differences are important to study further.