Urban young women's experiences of family, community and structural violence and subsequent intimate partner violence involvement

What are the interrelationships between childhood and adolescent exposures to multiple forms of violence and subsequent young adult involvement in intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization and perpetration? This study uses longitudinal data from the Reach for Health study, in which a sample of 508 urban African American and Latina females was followed from middle school into high school and young adulthood, over a course of approximately 7 years. The sample was recruited from public schools in economically distressed New York City neighborhoods. At the last wave, respondents were 19-20 years old; 27% were raising children, 9% were pregnant, 15% were trying to get pregnant. At this time, 26% of women reported they had been victims of physical or weapon related IPV, and 9% reported sexual violence victimization; the women also reported relatively high levels of IPV perpetration, and many had histories of aggressive behavior during middle and high school. 23% reported being exposed to domestic violence and 40% reported some type of physical abuse prior to age 18. As expected, these childhood exposures were related to subsequent IPV involvements. In addition, high school accounts of experiences of discrimination and community violence were related to current reports of IPV victimization as well as perpetration. The interrelationships and shared risk factors for different forms of intimate partner violence are discussed, along with implications for family violence prevention programs. These include the importance of addressing community health, as well as individual and family factors, associated with multiple forms of violence victimization and perpetration.