Please read the given article in the Module of Week 10;
“Violence, Abuse, and Crime Exposure in a National Sample
of Children and Youth.” David Finkelhor, Heather Turner, et
al., in Pediatrics. (This paper is attached as Pdf file)
While you are reading, please focus on sampling
process that the academic article is involving
Discuss the sampling process in the article.
Discuss whether you think the sample has any
problems or biases
Discuss whether you think if the results are
representative of the population.
Homework Assignment Week # 10 Explanation Please read the given article in the Module of Week 10; “Violence, Abuse, and Crime Exposure in a National Sample of Children and Youth.” David Finkelhor, Heather Turner, et al., in Pediatrics. (This paper is attached as Pdf file) While you are reading, please focus on sampling process that the academic article is involving Discuss the sampling process in the article. Discuss whether you think the sample has any problems or biases Discuss whether you think if the results are representative of the population. untitled Copyright 2013 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Violence, Crime, and Abuse Exposure in a National Sample of Children and Youth An Update David Finkelhor, PhD; Heather A. Turner, PhD; Anne Shattuck, MA; Sherry L. Hamby, PhD E vidence continues to accumulate that there are seri-ous consequences to health and well-being and soci-ety from childhood exposure to violence and abuse.1,2 Child maltreatment, peer victimization, and exposure to fam- ily and community violence have been shown to be con- nected to developmental difficulties, problem behavior, and physical and mental health effects extending throughout the life span.3-6 However, the epidemiology of child victimiza- tion remains fragmented,7 with published studies8,9 on lim- ited portions of the age and exposure spectrum and only oc- casionally with a national scope. Controversies persist about the most common forms of victimization, age of maximum ex- posure across type, and trends over time.10-12 In an effort to improve the epidemiology and make it more comprehensive, the US Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have combined resources to support a more regular and systematic national assessment of children’s exposure to violence, crime, and abuse. In 2008, the first such assessment, the National Survey of Children’s Expo- sure to Violence I (NatSCEV I), was conducted.13 The next wave in this assessment, conducted in 2011, has been completed. This article provides updated epidemiology on the exposure of chil- dren to violence, crime, and abuse based on those data. Methods Participants The NatSCEV II was designed to obtain up-to-date incidence and prevalence estimates of a wide range of childhood victimiza- IMPORTANCE Because exposure to violence, crime, and abuse has been shown to have serious consequences on child development, physicians and policymakers need to know the kinds of exposure that occur at various developmental stages. OBJECTIVES To provide updated estimates of and trends for childhood exposure to a broad range of violence, crime, and abuse victimizations. DESIGN The National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence was based on a cross-sectional, US national telephone survey conducted in 2011. SETTING Interviews by telephone. PARTICIPANTS The experiences of 4503 children and youth aged 1 month to 17 years were assessed by interviews with caregivers and with youth in the case of those aged 10 to 17 years. RESULTS Two-fifths (41.2%) of children and youth experienced a physical assault in the last year, and 1 in 10 (10.1%) experienced an assault-related injury. Two percent experienced sexual assault or sexual abuse in the last year, but the rate was 10.7% for girls aged 14 to 17 years. More than 1 in 10 (13.7%) experienced maltreatment by a caregiver, including 3.7% who experienced physical abuse. Few significant changes could be detected in rates since an equivalent survey in 2008, but declines were documented in peer flashing, school bomb threats, juvenile sibling assault, and robbery and total property victimization. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE The variety and scope of children’s exposure to violence, crime, and abuse suggest the need for better and more comprehensive tools in clinical and research settings for identifying these experiences and their effects. JAMA Pediatr. 2013;167(7):614-621. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.42 Published online May 13, 2013. Supplemental content at jamapediatrics.com Author Affiliations: Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham (Finkelhor, Turner, Shattuck); Sewanee: The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee (Hamby). Corresponding Author: David Finkelhor, PhD, Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire, 126 Horton Social Science Center, 20 Academic Way, Durham, NH 03824 (david.finkelhor @unh.edu). Research Original Investigation 614 JAMA Pediatrics July 2013 Volume 167, Number 7 jamapediatrics.com Copyright 2013 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 02/26/2022 Copyright 2013 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. tions. It consists of a national sample of 4503 children and youth aged 1 month to 17 years in 2011. Study interviews were con- ducted over the telephone by the employees of an experi- enced survey research firm. Telephone interviewing is a cost- effective method14,15 that has been demonstrated to be comparable with in-person interviews in data quality, even for reports of victimization, psychopathology, and other sensitive topics.16-21 In fact, some evidence suggests that telephone in- terviews are perceived by respondents as more anonymous, less intimidating, and more private than in-person modes16,22 and, as a result, may encourage greater disclosure of victimization events.16All procedures were authorized by the institutional re- view board of the University of New Hampshire. The primary foundation of the study design was a nation- wide sampling frame of residential telephone numbers from which a sample of telephone households was drawn by ran- dom digit dialing. Two additional samples were obtained to represent the growing number of households that rely en- tirely or mostly on cell phones, including a small national sample of cellular telephone numbers drawn from the ran- dom digit dialing method (n = 31) and an address-based sample (n = 750). The address-based sample started with a national sample of addresses from the postal Delivery Sequence File. These addresses were mailed a 1-page questionnaire. The ad- dress-based sample was drawn from the pool of returned ques- tionnaires that represented households with children and youth 17 years or younger. These households were then re- contacted by interviewers and asked to participate in the survey. Approximately one-half of the eligible households ob- tained through the address-based sample were cell phone– only households and represented an effective way to include households without landlines in our sample. Procedure A short interview was conducted with an adult caregiver (usu- ally a parent) to obtain family demographic information. One child was then randomly selected from all eligible children liv- ing in a household by selecting the child with the most recent birthday. If the selected individual was aged 10 to 17 years, the main telephone interview was conducted with the child. If the selected child was younger than 10 years, the interview was conducted with the caregiver who “is most familiar with the child’s daily routine and experiences.” Respondents were promised complete confidentiality and were paid $20 for their participation. The interviews, averag- ing 55 minutes in length, were conducted in English or Span- ish. Respondents who disclosed a situation of serious threat or ongoing victimization were recontacted by a clinical mem- ber of the research team, trained in telephone crisis counsel- ing, whose responsibility was to stay in contact with the re- spondent until the situation was appropriately addressed locally. Response Rates Averaged across collection modalities, the cooperation rate was 60%, and the response rate was 40.4%. These are good rates by current survey research standards23-25 given the steady de- clines in response rates that have occurred during the past 3 decades26 and the particular marked drop in recent years.24,27,28 Although the potential for response bias remains an impor- tant consideration, several recent studies29-32 have shown no meaningful association between response rates and re- sponse bias. Measurement This survey used an enhanced version of the Juvenile Victim- ization Questionnaire. This instrument obtains an inventory of childhood victimization.33-35 The enhanced version of the Juvenile Victimization Ques- tionnaire obtained reports on 54 forms of offenses against youth that cover the following 6 general areas of concern: sexual assault, child maltreatment, conventional crime, In- ternet victimization, peer and sibling victimization, and wit- nessing and indirect victimization. Follow-up questions for each screening item gathered additional information, includ- ing the use of a weapon and perpetrator characteristics, as well as whether injury resulted and whether the event occurred in conjunction with another screening event. Because different kinds of victimizations can occur together and can overlap by definition (eg, physical abuse by a caretaker can also be an as- sault with or without injury), rates reported for victimiza- tions in this article reflect considerable rescoring of these data provided by the screening items and follow-up questions. Spe- cific screening items reflecting the 54 types of events are given in eAppendix 1, and definitions of the rescored victimiza- tions and aggregates are given in eAppendix 2 (Supplement). The survey instrument used in the NatSCEV II included several new screening items that were not included in the NatSCEV I in 2008. Rates shown for the NatSCEV II reflect the incorporation of the new screening information in rates; how- ever, comparisons of rates with 2008 were based only on data from screening items that were used in both surveys. Data Analysis Weighting The weighting plan for the survey was a multistage sequen- tial process of weighting the sample to correct for study de- sign and demographic variations in nonresponse. Specifi- cally, weights were applied to adjust for (1) differing probabilities of household selection based on sampling frames, (2) variations in within-household selection resulting from dif- ferent numbers of eligible children across households, and (3) differences in sample proportions according to sex, age, in- come, census region, race/ethnicity, number of adults and chil- dren in the household, and telephone status (cell only, mostly cell, or other) relative to the 2010 American Community Sur- vey Public Use Microdata Sample. Results Tables 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 give the exposure rates for 5 major do- mains, including assaults and bullying, sexual victimization, maltreatment by a caregiver, property victimization, and wit- nessing victimization. Each table summarizes rates of expo- sure for the last year in total and broken down by sex and age. They also give rates of lifetime exposure in total, by sex, and National Violence, Crime, and Abuse Exposure Original Investigation Research jamapediatrics.com JAMA Pediatrics July 2013 Volume 167, Number 7 615 Copyright 2013 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 02/26/2022 Copyright 2013 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. for those aged 14 to 17 years. Finally, they list changes in cur- rent rates compared with the NatSCEV I (2008) rates. Assault Two of 5 children (41.2%) were physically assaulted during the last year (Table 1). One in 10 children (10.1%) was injured. Sib- lings and nonsibling peers were common perpetrators. Also common were physical intimidation (13.7%) and relational ag- gression (36.5%), terminology we use instead of the more com- mon terms of physical and emotional bullying, which in their technical definition require a “power imbalance” in the rela- tionship between victim and perpetrator. Some specific kinds of assaults occurred in smaller groups of youth, including bias attack to 1.8%, assault by gang or group to 1.7%, attempted or completed kidnapping to 0.6%, and dating violence to 3.2% of youth older than 12 years. Boys experienced more assaults over- all (45.2% vs 37.1% for girls). Compared with girls, boys had par- ticularly disproportionate levels of assault with injury (13.0% vs 7.1%), assault by gang or group (2.5% vs 0.9%), and non- sexual assault to the genitals (9.3% vs 1.0%). Compared with boys, girls were targets of more dating violence (4.7% vs 1.9%). Assault with injury, dating violence, and nonsexual assault to the genitals were higher among the oldest youth (those aged 14-17 years). Assault by peer tended to be most common dur- ing middle childhood. Bullying-type victimizations are summarized in Table 1. Relational aggression and Internet or cell phone harassment were higher for girls. Physical intimidation was highest for chil- dren younger than 10 years, and relational aggression was high- est for those aged 6 to 9 years. Internet or cell phone harass- ment was highest for those aged 14 to 17 years. The overall estimate for assault in 2011 was down 2.2 per- centage points compared with 2008, and most specific forms of assault also showed declines. However, except for the de- cline in lifetime exposure to sibling assault, none of the changes in assault from 2008 to 2011 were statistically significant. Sexual Assault Almost 6% (5.6%) of the total sample experienced a sexual vic- timization in the last year, and 2.2% experienced a sexual as- sault (Table 2). (Sexual assault excludes sexual harassment and includes attempted and completed rape, plus contact sex of- fenses by adults and peers. It is equivalent to contact sexual abuse.) Rates were considerably higher for girls aged 14 to 17 years (the highest-risk group), 22.8% of whom experienced a sexual victimization and 10.7% of whom experienced a sexual assault in the last year. Among this group, 8.1% had reported an attempted or completed rape, 13.6% experienced sexual ha- rassment, and 12.9% were exposed to an unwanted Internet sexual solicitation in the last year. There is considerable focus in the literature on the life- time risk of sexual assault and victimization. The NatSCEV II lifetime estimates for youth aged 14 to 17 years (who have al- most completed childhood) by sex are given in Table 2: 17.4% Table 1. Assaults and Bullying Among 4503 Children and Youth Aged 1 Month to 17