The Impact of Neighborhoods on Intimate Partner Violence and Victimization

Research on intimate partner violence (IPV) and victimization is widespread across disciplines. To date, the majority of research underscores the importance of individual-level factors to explain IPV, thereby neglecting the significance of macro-level elements. Nevertheless, research suggests that the characteristics of the neighborhood where an individual lives are important for fully understanding IPV. This review focuses on the effects of neighborhoods and macro-level context on violence between intimate partners, specifically identifying empirical studies that have examined contextual predictors of IPV utilizing the major tenets of social disorganization theory. The authors note consistencies and differences across research results and describe study features that may influence the patterns of these findings. Finally, the authors provide both theoretical and methodological recommendations for future research

Exposure to violence, substance use, and neighborhood context

Adolescent exposure to violence and substance use are both public health problems, but how neighborhood context contributes to these outcomes is unclear. This study uses prospective data from 1416 adolescents to examine the direct and interacting influences of victimization and neighborhood factors on adolescent substance use. Based on hierarchical Bernoulli regression models that controlled for prior substance use and multiple individual-level factors, exposure to violence significantly increased the likelihood of marijuana use but not alcohol use or binge drinking. There was little evidence that community norms regarding adolescent substance use influenced rates of substance use or moderated the impact of victimization. Community disadvantage did not directly impact substance use, but the relationship between victimization and marijuana use was stronger for those in neighborhoods with greater disadvantage. The results suggest that victimization is particularly likely to affect adolescents’ marijuana use, and that this relationship may be contingent upon neighborhood economic conditions

The Protective Effects of Neighborhood Collective Efficacy on Adolescent Substance Use and Violence Following Exposure to Violence

Research has demonstrated that exposure to violence can result in many negative consequences for youth, but the degree to which neighborhood conditions may foster resiliency among victims is not well understood. This study tests the hypothesis that neighborhood collective efficacy attenuates the relationship between adolescent exposure to violence, substance use, and violence. Data were collected from 1,661 to 1,718 adolescents participating in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, who were diverse in terms of sex (51 % male, 49 % female), race/ethnicity (48 % Hispanic, 34 % African American, 14 % Caucasian, and 4 % other race/ethnicity), and age (mean age 12 years; range 8–16). Information on neighborhood collective efficacy was obtained from adult residents, and data from the 1990 US. Census were used to control for neighborhood disadvantage. Based on hierarchical modeling techniques to adjust for the clustered data, Bernoulli models indicated that more exposure to violence was associated with a greater likelihood of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use and perpetration of violence. Poisson models suggested that victimization was also related to a greater variety of substance use and violent behaviors. A moderating effect of collective efficacy was found in models assessing the variety of substance use; the relationship between victimization and substance use was weaker for youth in neighborhoods with higher versus lower levels of collective efficacy. These findings are consistent with literature indicating that social support can ameliorate the negative impact of victimization. This investigation extends this research to show that neighborhood social support can also help to promote resiliency among adolescents

Gender Differences in the Effects of Exposure to Violence on Adolescent Substance Use

To date, research exploring gender differences in the relationship between exposure to community violence and substance use has been limited. This study employs longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to assess the exposure to violence–substance use relationship and explore whether this relationship varies by gender. We find that the two forms of exposure to violence—direct (primary) and indirect (secondary)—independently increase the frequency of subsequent alcohol use, binge drinking, and marijuana use among males and females. One gender difference emerged, as females who had been directly victimized engaged in more frequent binge drinking than males who had been directly victimized. Across both sexes, the effect of each form of violence weakened when other predictors of substance use were included in the models. Future directions for this research are discussed, including policy recommendations to help adolescents cope with victimization experiences