Measuring adolescents' exposure to victimization: The Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study

Abstract

This paper presents mutlilevel findings on adolescents’ victimization exposure from a large longitudinal cohort of twins. Data were obtained from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study, an epidemiological study of 2,232 children (1,116 twin pairs) followed to 18 years of age (with 93% retention). To assess adolescent victimization we combined best practices in survey research on victimization with optimal approaches to measuring life stress and traumatic experiences, and introduce a reliable system for coding severe victimization. One in three children experienced at least one type of severe victimization during adolescence (crime victimization, peer/sibling victimization, internet/mobile phone victimization, sexual victimization, family violence, maltreatment, or neglect), and most types of victimization were more prevalent amongst children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Exposure to multiple victimization types was common, as was re-victimization; over half of those physically maltreated in childhood were also exposed to severe physical violence in adolescence. Biometric twin analyses revealed that environmental factors had the greatest influence on most types of victimization, while severe physical maltreatment from caregivers during adolescence was predominantly influenced by heritable factors. The findings from this study showcase how distinct levels of victimization measurement can be harmonized in large-scale studies of health and development.

Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Psychotic-Like Symptoms and Stress Reactivity in Daily Life in Nonclinical Young Adults

“…We found that analogous CTQ and ITEC scores were highly related and showed agreement in their associations with psychotic-like and paranoid symptoms. This is a positive finding for the field given that interview measures are frequently not feasible to employ, especially in large-scale investigations [23]. It is worth noting that the abuse and neglect variables showed substantial association, which is consistent with numerous studies indicating that abuse and neglect tend to co-occur [57]; however, this does not preclude that each set of experiences could have certain unique effects in shaping psychological states and maladaptive strategies.…”

“…Furthermore, to our knowledge, it has yet to be examined whether the use of different techniques for assessing adverse experiences (interview versus questionnaire) yields similar associations with psychosis symptom domains. Interview measures of life-stress are generally regarded as superior to questionnaires because they allow for probing and clarification of relevant details and minimize biases related to subjective responding [23][24][25]. However, interviews are often not feasible in large-scale studies due to the labor and time required for their administration [23,26,27].…”

“…Interview measures of life-stress are generally regarded as superior to questionnaires because they allow for probing and clarification of relevant details and minimize biases related to subjective responding [23][24][25]. However, interviews are often not feasible in large-scale studies due to the labor and time required for their administration [23,26,27]. Utilizing both types of measures within the same study may provide insights about the relevance of the assessment methodology in examining the effects of different adversity exposures.…”

Analysis of DNA Methylation in Young People: Limited Evidence for an Association Between Victimization Stress and Epigenetic Variation in Blood

“…For example, in E-Risk, every type of victimization in childhood was associated with a significantly greater risk of victimization in adolescence (25), and polyvictimized children were 1.60 (95% CI=1.42, 1.82) times more likely to be polyvictimized again as adolescents. This suggested the hypothesis that the biological embedding of victimization is especially likely to occur in response to a greater cumulative stress load.…”

“…Childhood and adolescent victimization experiences in this cohort have been described previously (2, 25) and are summarized here (details are provided in the online data supplement). …”