Date of Award

Fall 2025

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Michelle Brown

Second Advisor

Suzanne Swan

Abstract

Black youth and adolescents are at a disproportionately high risk for experiencing community violence exposure (CVE) and the potential influence it may have on psychological functioning. Research posits that Black youth who experience community violence are at a significantly higher risk of experiencing elevated internalizing symptoms (e.g., depression) and externalizing symptoms (e.g., delinquency). Previous research has utilized the ecological model to investigate interpersonal protective factors that potentially buffer the effects of CVE, including parental support and family characteristics. However, there is little research that explores community-level factors, such as community activities (e.g., youth activities and parental perception of collective efficacy) as a potential moderator between CVE and mental health symptoms. Therefore, this study aims to examine youth community engagement and neighborhood collective efficacy as potential moderators of the association between repeated CVE, defined as exposure to community violence over multiple time points, and internalizing/externalizing symptomology among Black adolescents. Data from the current study focused on a subset of 380 Black/African American adolescents from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect. Regression analysis was used to determine whether youth community involvement and neighborhood collective efficacy moderate the association between CVE and mental health outcomes. Although a moderation analysis was initially considered, it was not conducted due to the absence of a significant direct effect of repeated CV at age 12 on internalizing symptoms (β = .009, p = .846) or externalizing symptoms (β = 0.07, p = .095) at age 16. These findings suggest that there may be underlying factors such as desensitization or individual coping mechanisms that contribute to the relationship between repeated witnessed community violence exposure and mental health symptoms.

Rights

© 2025, Curtisha Tamara Shacklewood

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