About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 6. Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

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A vast literature has been assembled to document the impact of violence exposure on child and adolescent outcomes. Yet substantial gaps remain in our understanding of how encounters with violence exert effects on development. For example, although youth can experience violence across multiple settings (e.g., homes, neighborhoods, schools), we know relatively little about the additive effects of multi-context exposures. Further, though there is increasingly more research on war-affected youth populations, few studies have examined the impact of persistent, years-long exposure to political-interethnic violence. Available studies indicate that exposure to violence across multiple settings is linked to worse outcomes for youth (Dragone et al., 2024; Mrug & Windle, 2010) and that chronic exposure increases the involvement in serious violent behavior (Dubow et al., 2019). In the present study, we examine the cumulative effects of exposure to school, family, community, and political-interethnic violence encountered by Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Arab youth from childhood through very early adulthood.

Participants in this study were children and one of their caregivers first recruited in 2008 for an initial three yearly waves of assessment (survey interviews) from three age cohorts (starting ages of 8, 11, and 14); a randomly selected reduced sample of the original participants was drawn in 2014 to yield four-wave samples of Israeli Jewish (N=162) and Palestinian Arab (N=400) youth. At wave 4 the average ages of youth in the three age cohorts were 14, 17, and 20; sex of child was evenly distributed and our randomized approach to resampling reduced the impact of any selective attrition. At all waves of data collection, children and/or their caregivers provided reports on the children’s exposure to violence in their families, communities, and schools (Attar et al., 1994), as well as their exposure to political-interethnic violence more broadly (Slone et al., 1999). Children self-reported post-traumatic stress symptoms (Pynoos et al., 1987) and children and caregivers both provided ratings for a composite measure of aggressive behavior (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1983; Lefkowitz et al., 1977) at all waves.

Given substantial continuity of exposure indicators over time (p < .001), we created three-wave mean composites of exposure across the four categories for the purposes of analysis. Multiple regression analyses controlling sex, age, and baseline levels of criterion scores at step 1 showed significant prediction to both PTS (ΔR2 = .07, p < .001) and aggression (ΔR2 = .05, p < .001) from multi-contextual exposures in step 2. For PTS, exposures to persistent political-interethnic (β=.21, p < .05) and family violence (β=.11, p < .01) were significant predictors. For aggression, exposures to persistent political-interethnic (β=.24, p < .05) and school violence (β=.12, p < .05) were significant predictors. These analyses underscore the importance of examining encounters with violence across multiple contexts simultaneously as well as the value of considering chronic exposure over time. Additional analyses will consider moderation of effects by sex and age and the implications of these findings for aid efforts and prevention approaches in war-affected youth populations.

Author information

Author	Role
Kaylise Algrim, Rutgers University	Presenting author
Paul Boxer, Rutgers University	Non-presenting author
Eric Dubow, Bowling Green State University	Non-presenting author
Meagan Docherty, Bowling Green State University	Non-presenting author
Romi Paldi, Rutgers University	Non-presenting author
L. Rowell Huesmann, University of Michigan	Non-presenting author
Samantha Simon, Rutgers University	Non-presenting author
Daniel Reardon, Rutgers University	Non-presenting author
Khalil Shikaki, Palestine Center for Political and Survey Research	Non-presenting author
Simha Landau, Hebrew University	Non-presenting author
Shira Dvir Gvirsman, Tel-Aviv University	Non-presenting author

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