259583 School violence and victimization among military and non-military connected youth

Wednesday, October 31, 2012 : 9:15 AM - 9:30 AM

Tamika D. Gilreath, PhD , School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Ron Astor, PhD , School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Rami Benbenishty, PhD , Louis and Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work, Bar Ilan University, Jerusalem, Israel
Hazel Atuel, PhD , School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Los Angles, CA
Julie A. Cederbaum, PhD, MSW, MPH , School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Jennifer B. Unger, PhD , Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
School violence, including victimization and perpetration, are major public health priorities. Military connected youth may be at risk for weapon carrying, victimization, and/or perpetration. The present analyses sought to explore the rates and correlates of school violence among youth who were not military-connected, as compared to youth with a military-connected parent and youth with a military-connected sibling. Data are from a sub-sample of the California Healthy Kids Survey. The sample consisted of 14,512 youth in southern California. Items to assess victimization, perpetration and weapon carrying were separated into three categories. Physical acts of violence (victim and/or perpetrator), nonphysical acts (e.g., having rumors spread about them) and weapon carrying. The bivariate results indicate military-connected youth with a parent serving had higher rates of physical violence (60.3%), nonphysical victimization (68.1%), and weapon carrying (14.4%) compared to those with siblings serving (55.2%, 65.2, and 11.4% respectively) and those non-military connected (50.3%, 61.6%, and 8.9%, respectively) youth. In the multivariate analyses having a parent in the military increased the likelihood of weapon carrying by 33% (OR=1.33, 95% CI= 1.05-1.67). Increasing number of deployments was associated with significant increases in the likelihood of all of the school violence, victimization, and weapon carrying behaviors. These results present concerning findings associated with potential externalizing behaviors of military-connected youth. Based on the results of this analysis, a focus on those youth who are dealing with deployments of their family member is warranted in school settings.

Learning Areas:
Epidemiology
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe differences in prevalence of school violence, victimization, and weapon carrying among military and non military-connected youth. 2. Discuss correlates of school violence, victimization, and weapon carrying among military and non military-connected youth.

Keywords: Violence, Adolescents

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Iconducted research on adolescent risk behaviors which includes peer-reviewed publications and presentations at national conferences, including youth and gang violence. I ran several projects related to substance use including biomedical studies of smoking patterns and secondary data analyses of correlates of smoking among African American youth and adults. My research interests include health disparities, patterns of co-morbidity of substance use, poor mental health among African American youth, international tobacco consumption among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa.
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.

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