Neighborhood-Level Factors Associated with Physical Dating Violence Perpetration: Results of a Representative Survey Conducted in Boston, MA

Abstract

Neighborhood-level characteristics have been found to be associated with different forms of interpersonal violence, but studies of the relationship between these characteristics and adolescent dating violence are limited. We examined 6 neighborhood-level factors in relation to adolescent physical dating violence perpetration using both adolescent and adult assessments of neighborhood characteristics, each of which was aggregated across respondents to the neighborhood level. Data came from an in-school survey of 1,530 public high school students and a random-digit-dial telephone survey of 1,710 adult residents of 38 neighborhoods in Boston. Approximately 14.3% of the youth sample reported one or more acts of physical aggression toward a dating partner in the month preceding the survey. We calculated the odds of past-month physical dating violence by each neighborhood-level factor, adjusting for school clustering, gender, race, and nativity. In our first 6 models, we used the adolescent assessment of neighborhood factors and then repeated our procedures using the adult assessment data. Using the adolescent assessment data, lower collective efficacy (AOR=1.95, 95% CI= 1.09-3.52), lower social control (AOR=1.92, 95% CI=1.07-3.43), and neighborhood disorder (AOR=1.19, 95% CI=1.05-1.35) were each associated with increased likelihood of physical dating violence perpetration. However, when we used the adult version of the neighborhood assessment data, no neighborhood factor predicted dating violence. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

Physical dating violence: towards a comprehensible view of the phenomenon / Violencia física en las relaciones sentimentales adolescentes: hacia la comprensión del fenómeno

“…However, scientific research (Capaldi & Owen, 2001;Rothman et al, 2011;Timmons Fritz & Smith-Slep, 2009) has mostly addressed physically violent behaviours. The possibility of objectifying behaviours such as pushing, kicking, grabbing, etc.…”

“…No obstante, los comportamientos violentos de carácter físico han sido los más atendidos por los trabajos científicos (Capaldi y Owen, 2001;Rothman et al, 2011;Timmons Fritz y Smith-Slep, 2009). La posibilidad de objetivación que tienen comportamientos como empujar, patear, agarrar, etc.…”

Drinking Context and Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence From the California Community Health Study of Couples

“…Population-based surveys within the United States (Schafer et al, 1998;Smith et al, 2011;Whitaker et al, 2007) and the United Kingdom (Graham et al, 2004) have found that rates of FMPV equal or exceed the rates of MFPV. Of note, adolescent females perpetrate dating violence at higher rates than their male peers (Jain et al, 2010;Magdol et al, 1997;Rothman et al, 2011). Women, however, are more likely than men to sustain injury as a result of IPV (Archer, those who did most of their drinking in bars (and also drank in other venues) were signifi cantly more likely to report arguments and fi ghting in the past 12 months compared with those who were light drinkers.…”

Violencia física en la pareja adolescente: la potencialidad interpretativa de un modelo bifactorial.

“…Although these studies have looked at violence of all types -verbal, sexual, coercive, relational and physical -most of the resulting literature has focused on physical violence (Capaldi and Owen, 2001;O'Donohue, Downs and Yeater, 1998;Rothman et al, 2011;Timmons and Slep, 2009), probably because of its unexpectedly high prevalence. The data collected is alarming, revealing aggression levels of 31% and 26% respectively for boys and girls (Simon, Miller, Gorman-Smith, Orpinas and Sullivan, 2010), but a number of studies have urged caution when evaluating this prevalence, drawing attention to the variety of types of aggression that may be covered under the single construct of "physical violence" and their relative sig-nificance taking into account other background variables.…”