Abstract
To identify individual, family and community-level risk and protective factors for violence perpetration in a national sample of adolescents. Analysis of two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The key outcome variable was Time 2 violence involvement, approximately 1 year after initial data collection, measured by a validated scale of violence perpetration Controlling for demographic covariates in multivariate regression models, key Time 1 protective factors against Time 2 violence perpetration included measures related to parental expectations, connectedness with parents and other adults, and school, higher grade point average and religiosity. Significant predictive risk factors included a history of violence involvement and violence victimization, weapon carrying, school problems, substance use, health problems, and friend suicide. Probability profiles then assessed the ability of protective factors to offset known risk factors for violence. For both girls and boys there were substantial reductions in the percentage of youth involved in violence in the presence of protective factors, even with significant risk factors present. Findings support the utility of a dual strategy of reducing risk factors while enhancing protective factors in the lives of adolescents.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 424.e1-424.e10 |
| Journal | Journal of Adolescent Health |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2004 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This study was supported by grant R49/CCR511638-03-2 from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and by grant 1T71MC0002501 of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. The research is based on data from the Add Health project, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry (PI) and Peter Bearman, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with cooperative funding participation by the National Cancer Institute; the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; the National Institute of Drug Abuse; the National Institute of General Medical Sciences; the National Institute of Mental Health; the National Institute of Nursing Research; the Office of AIDS Research, NIH; the Office of Behavior and Social Science Research, NIH; the Office of the Director, NIH; the Office of Research on Women's Health, NIH; the Office of Population Affairs, DHHS; the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DHHS; the Office of Minority Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DHHS; the Office of Minority Health, Office of Public Health and Science, DHHS; the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, DHHS; and the National Science Foundation. Persons interested in obtaining data files from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health should contact Jo Jones, Carolina Population Center, 123 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-3997 (E-mail: [email protected]).
Keywords
- Adolescents
- Gender differences
- Risk and protective factors
- Violence perpetration
