Neighborhood predictors of dating violence victimization and perpetration in young adulthood: a multilevel study.
OBJECTIVE
We examined whether social processes of neighborhoods, such as collective efficacy, during individual's adolescent years affect the likelihood of being involved in physical dating violence during young adulthood.


METHODS
Using longitudinal data on 633 urban youths aged 13 to 19 years at baseline and data from their neighborhoods (collected by the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods), we ran multilevel linear regression models separately by gender to assess the association between collective efficacy and physical dating violence victimization and perpetration, controlling for individual covariates, neighborhood poverty, and perceived neighborhood violence.


RESULTS
Females were significantly more likely than were males to be perpetrators of dating violence during young adulthood (38% vs 19%). Multilevel analyses revealed some variation in dating violence at the neighborhood level, partly accounted for by collective efficacy. Collective efficacy was predictive of victimization for males but not females after control for confounders; it was marginally associated with perpetration (P=.07). The effects of collective efficacy varied by neighborhood poverty. Finally, a significant proportion (intraclass correlation=14%-21%) of the neighborhood-level variation in male perpetration remained unexplained after modeling.


CONCLUSIONS
Community-level strategies may be useful in preventing dating violence.
Jain
Sonia
S
Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA. sjain@wested.org
Buka
Stephen L
SL
Subramanian
S V
SV
Molnar
Beth E
BE
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D000328:Adult; D002641:Chicago; D003380:Courtship; D019548:Crime Victims; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D011203:Poverty; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D014505:Urban Population; D014754:Violence; D055815:Young Adult