215456 Whom Do Youth Fight With?: Results from the Boston Youth Survey 2008

Monday, November 8, 2010 : 11:10 AM - 11:30 AM

Renee M. Johnson, PhD, MPH , Dept. of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA
Mary G. Vriniotis, MS , Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
Deborah Azrael, PhD , Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
Beth E. Molnar, ScD , Dept of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard University School of Public Health, Boston, MA
Emily Rothman, ScD , Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA
David Hemenway, PhD , Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
When studying fighting, youth violence researchers often fail to ask whom youth fought with. Although many presume that the prevalence of “fighting” reflects the prevalence of “peer” fighting, it may include fighting between siblings and dating partners as well. We examined who youth fought with using data from the “Boston Youth Survey” (BYS), a biennial survey of a random sample of public high school students in Boston, MA (n=1,878). The BYS includes multiple items about aggressive behavior, including three measures on fighting within the past month. Each of the items instructs students to restrict their answers to fights with siblings, peers, or dating partners. In this presentation we identify what proportion of fights are with peers, and then quantify the co-occurrence of fighting with dating partners, peers, and siblings. Twenty-one percent reported a fight with a peer, 7.3% reported a fight with a dating partner, and 15.3% reported a fight with a sibling. Girls were more likely to report fights with siblings and intimates, whereas boys were more likely to report fights with peers. One-third (31%) of youth reported having been in a fight with a sibling, a peer, a dating partner, or any combination thereof; 68.9% of whom indicated that they fought with a peer. The prevalence of fighting among adolescents varies by the type of relationship that is specified and by sex. Therefore, we recommend specification of the relationships under study when surveying adolescents about fighting.

Learning Objectives:
1. Identify the importance of specifying who youth fight with in youth violence research. 2. Compare the prevalence of youth fighting across different relationships, including siblings, dating partners, and peers.

Keywords: Adolescent Health, Violence

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I wrote the paper and conducted the data analysis.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.