Citation

Warner TD, Swisher RR. J. Adolesc. Health 2014; 55(6): 817-822.

Affiliation

Department of Sociology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jadohealth.2014.06.019

PMID

25204591

Abstract

PURPOSE: Research finds that adolescents gravely overestimate their risk of death and that these pessimistic attitudes correlate with risky behaviors undermining health and well-being; however, it remains unclear why adolescents have negative expectations about their survival. Because youth are most likely to be exposed to violence (as victims and/or witnesses), perhaps these experiences are key in undermining expectations about the future. We explored the effect of direct and indirect exposures to violence-across various contexts-on adolescents' survival expectations.

METHODS: Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we tested the effect of violent experiences: individual direct and vicarious violence, familial and relational violence, school violence, and community violence on adolescents' expectations of surviving to 35 years of age.

RESULTS: Victims of childhood physical abuse were less likely to expect to survive to 35 years of age. Although not significant at the conventional p <.05 level, violent victimization (being jumped, cut/stabbed, shot, or threatened with a weapon) and intimate partner violence were marginally associated with decreased survival expectations (p <.10). School and community violence undermined expectations at the bivariate level, but became nonsignificant after adjustments for individual demographic characteristics.

CONCLUSIONS: Violent victimization in childhood and adolescence is a public health issue with both immediate and long-term consequences. Violence exposure severely compromises individuals' optimism about the future and places them at risk for behaviors that can further undermine well-being. Practitioners should be mindful of diminished survival expectations as a less overt consequence of exposure to violence.

Language: en