Adolescents' exposure to community violence: Sleep and psychophysiological functioning

Abstract

The relationships among psychophysiological indices, sleep disturbance, and adolescents' exposure to community violence were examined in a pilot study of 64 community youth (ages 16–18; 84% African American), 25 of whom had their blood pressure and pulse rates assessed. Neither age nor gender differences were found in self‐reported sleep disturbance or community violence exposure. Self‐reported exposure to community violence and sleep deprivation were positively related. Multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVAs) revealed that youth at the highest of three levels of violence exposure had the lowest resting pulse rates. These results suggest that youth in communities marked by pervasive violence may be physiologically adapting and emotionally desensitizing to that violence. Implications for intervention are discussed. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Community violence exposure in a young adult sample: II. Psychophysiology and aggressive behavior

“…The only known study to examine psychophysiological responses in a sample of individuals exposed to community violence provides support for the notion that psychophysiological activity may change as a result of violence exposure (Cooley-Quille & Lorion, 1999). In this pilot study, urban adolescents categorized as high on violence exposure showed lower resting HR and systolic blood pressure relative to those with low exposure.…”

“…This hypothesis was not supported in that, even though cortisol, HR, and HRV were related to aggression, none of these measures differed between the high-and low-exposed groups. This finding is in contrast to the pilot study by Cooley-Quille and Lorion (1999) who found low resting-pulse rates in 16-to 18-year-old urban youth at the highest of three levels of violence exposure. It is possible that such group differences will only emerge in high-risk samples where violence exposure is more severe, pervasive, or recent.…”

“…As such, community violence exposure seems to pervade our culture, found even in low-risk samples, and its negative behavioral effects seem to persist from childhood into adulthood. Cooley-Quille and Lorion (1999) have suggested that basic physiological processes "may be influenced by violence exposure and may themselves influence affect and behavior." (p. 368) The identification of such mediating processes may point to mechanisms that underlie the negative behavioral effects of violence exposure.…”

Definitional and measurement issues in the study of community violence among children and youths

“…Studies have reported links between community violence exposure and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (Berman et al, 1996;Fitzpatrick & Boldizar, 1993;Garbarino, Kostelny, & Dubrow, 1992;Horowitz, Weine, & Jekel, 1995;Kliewer, Lepore, Oskin, & Johnson, 1998), aggressive and delinquent behaviors (Attar, Guerra, & Tolan, 1994;DuRant, Pendergrast, & Cadenhead, 1994a;Gorman-Smith & Tolan, 1998;Miller, Wasserman, Neugenbauer, Gorman-Smith, & Kamboukos, 1999;Schwab-Stone et al, 1995), heightened anxiety and depression (Freeman, Mokros, & Poznanski, 1993;Kliewer et al, 1998), unusually pronounced grief and loss reactions (Freeman, Schaffer, & Smith, 1996;Osofsky et al, 1993;Pynoos & Eth, 1985), increased recklessness in play (Schwab-Stone et al, 1995), sleep disturbances (Cooley-Quille & Lorion, 1999) and cognitive or academic delays (Osofsky et al, 1993;Shakoor & Chalmers, 1991). Such an expanding array of findings has heightened recognition that community violence exposure among children and youths is a large-scale problem with often profound consequences.…”

Violence in our communities: Aiming one's focus

“…Findings obtained by Scarpa, Fiktoglu, and Luscher (in press) support preliminary evidence reported by Cooley-Quille and Lorion (1999) that exposure to violence in one's surroundings is associated with physiological indices of stress, arousal and, we suspect, sleep disorders. Albeit only minimally studied to date, it appears that sleep-related disorders are reported disproportionately in those reporting high levels of exposure to pervasive violence.…”