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Article Summary

Copeland-Linder, N., Lambert, S., & Ialongo, N. (2010).
Community violence, protective factors, and adolescent mental health: A profile analysis. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 39(2), 176.

    The authors examined the relationships among risk factors—such as exposure to community violence—and protective factors—such as self-worth and parental monitoring—and mental health outcomes (depressive symptoms and aggression). They argue that while there has been ample documentation of the negative effects of community exposure to violence (such as posttraumatic stress symptoms, internalizing symptoms, and antisocial behavior, among others), little is known about the effects of individual and family protective factors that insulate individuals from the negative effects of exposure to violence. They used ecological theories and risk and resilience theory as a framework for their analysis, using Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) on a sample of predominantly African American sixth-graders (N=504). Overall, their results indicated that 36% of youth in the sample witnessed violence in the past year, and 6% reported being victimized in the previous year. Community violence and victimization were negatively correlated with self-worth and positively associated with aggressive behavior (measured by teachers’ reports about aggressive behavior in the classroom).
     The authors’ LPA analyses yielded three categorical classes: Class 1, the most vulnerable group, comprised about 5% of the sample. Sixty-five percent of the youth in Class 1 were exposed to community violence (the highest of the three groups). The youth in this class also reported the lowest levels of self-worth. The level of parental involvement was slightly lower than for the youth in the two moderate-risk groups. Class 2, described as moderate in both risk and protective factors, comprised 18% of the sample. And Class 3, at moderate risk with relatively high levels of protective factors, was the largest group, comprising 77% of the sample. In this class 34% of youth were exposed to violence, and 5% were victimized.
     The three classes did not differentially predict aggressive behavior. This finding was surprising, and the authors suggest that more research is needed to fully understand the relationship between exposure to violence and aggression. They also found a gendered pattern in the depressive symptoms among the three classes. Girls in the most vulnerable class reported more depressive symptoms than did girls in the two moderate-risk classes; however, this pattern did not hold true for boys. There was no statistically significant difference for depressive symptoms between boys in the vulnerable group and boys in the moderate-risk classes. The authors conclude that more qualitative research is needed to fully understand the mechanisms operating between exposure to community violence, self-worth, and aggression and depression.