Child and Adolescent Violence Research at NIH

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Risk Factors Tragic events like the shootings at Columbine High School capture public attention and concern, but are not typical of youth violence. Most adolescent homicides are committed in inner cities and outside of school. They most frequently involve an interpersonal dispute and a single victim. On average, six or seven youths are murdered in this country each day. Most of these are inner-city minority youths. Such acts of violence are tragic and contribute to a climate of fear in schools and communities.

Research findings are identifying factors in the development of aggressive and antisocial behavior from early childhood to adolescence and into adulthood. Prospective longitudinal and intervention studies have identified major correlates for the initiation, escalation, continuation, and cessation of serious violent offending.

Many studies indicate that a single factor or a single defining situation does not cause child and adolescent antisocial behavior. Rather, multiple factors contribute to and shape antisocial behavior over the course of development. Some factors relate to characteristics within the child, but many others relate to factors within the social environment (e.g., family, peers, school, neighborhood, and community contexts) that enable, shape, and maintain aggression, antisocial behavior, and related behavior problems.

The research on risk for aggressive, antisocial and violent behavior includes multiple aspects and stages of life, beginning with interactions in the family. Such forces as weak bonding, ineffective parenting (poor monitoring, ineffective, excessively harsh, or inconsistent discipline, inadequate super-vision), exposure to violence in the home, and a climate that supports aggression and violence puts children at risk for being violent later in life. This is particularly so for youth with problem behavior, such as early conduct and attention problems, depression, anxiety disorders, lower cognitive and verbal abilities, etc. Outside of the home, one of the major factors contributing to youth violence is the impact of peers. In the early school years, a good deal of mild aggression and violence is related to peer rejection and competition for status and attention. More serious behavior problems and violence are associated with smaller numbers of youths who are failing academically and who band together, often with other youth rejected by prosocial peers. Successful early adjustment at home increases the likelihood that children will overcome such individual challenges and not

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