Rates of youth firearm exposure and carriage are well-established, but less work has examined how exposure to police violence and firearm violence, as victim or witness, may be associated with beliefs in gun ownership for society or access to guns. This study used survey data from a multiracial sample of 276 youth living in New Orleans, Louisiana…

Firearm-related violence is the leading cause of death for adolescents and can have lifelong ramifications, including to one's mental health and well-being. Through a scoping review of existing literature published since 1980, the current study describes nuanced pathways through which exposure to firearm violence (direct or indirect) can…

Limited emphasis is placed on understanding the gendered pathways that influence mental health, especially long-term cumulative impacts of gender-based inequalities. Exposure to early child marriage (marriage by age 15) may exaggerate exposure to gender-based mental health risk-factors, providing an opportunity to understand the multi-layered…

Research finds that vicarious strain significantly predicts juvenile delinquency. However, no studies have examined the influence of vicarious health strain on youth behavior despite the fact that when individuals directly experience poor health, there is a greater likelihood of crime and delinquency. Using a sample of youth from the Project on…

Past research has revealed a link between family economic hardship and children's bullying involvement, yet research has not examined the kinds of factors that may mediate this relationship. Our study used data from the National Survey of Children's Health and consisted of a sample of 15,797 children from 12 to 17 years of age who lived with their…

Community violence and its physical health consequences are well known among youth living in urban settings. However, less is known about the cumulative effect of contextual and demographic risk factors on posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) among vulnerable youth. Longitudinal data (baseline, 9-month, 21-month) were analyzed to investigate…

This study examines the incidence and correlates of coercive sexting by dating partners among middle and high school students, including sex-based differences and associations with other forms of sexual coercion. Survey data from a study of protective factors for teen dating violence in middle and high school students were examined (N = 1,236). Of…

The onset of behavioral problems in early childhood is associated with an increased frequency of delinquent behavior. A significant amount of youth in the juvenile justice system have histories of mental illness and psychological distress. However, little is known about what factors mediate the relationship between early onset behavioral problems…

There are no nationally representative estimates of the prevalence of dating abuse-related stalking and harassment. We analyzed data collected from 320 twelve- to 18-year-old U.S. youth. Youth with dating experience were asked whether a dating partner had ever spied on or followed them, damaged something that belonged to them, or gone through…

Limited work has focused on understanding mechanisms through which violence negatively impacts youth outcomes. The present study investigates how three different facets of violence exposure (witnessing violence, victimization and armed conflict) relate to Colombian youth externalizing behaviors via the indirect influence of aggressive cognitions…

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been identified as a key risk factor for a variety of negative health, psychiatric, and behavioral outcomes across the life course. Although recent research has begun to consider the role of ACEs in criminogenic behaviors among youth, few studies to date have assessed the association between early exposure…

Criminological literature has examined the potential for gendered pathways of offending, while also recognizing the gendered risk for victimization. General strain theory explicitly recognizes this gendered risk as strains that structure differences in these experiences for males and females. The current article tests the longitudinal risk for…

Youth, particularly urban minority youth, are exposed to high levels of stressful and potentially traumatic life events that have been linked to a wide array of negative outcomes including internalizing and externalizing problems. Youth perceptions of their interpersonal relationship quality with caregivers and friends were examined as potential…

Although gender has become a key dimension in migration research, previous scholarship has largely focused on adult rather than child migrants. Even less attention has been paid to the role of gender in migration-related child health. By comparing rural migrant and urban-born adolescents in the largest city in south China, this study assessed…

This study examined relations between patterns of dating aggression and victimization and school environment factors among 4,114 early adolescents attending 37 middle schools in four sites in the United States (51% Black, non-Hispanic, 21% Hispanic, and 17% White). Latent class analyses revealed a five-class solution that differentiated among…