Types of Community Violence Exposure and Clinical Outcomes: Evidence of Differing Associations Among Emerging Adults

Objective: Community violence (CV) is an important public health concern. The literature has largely focused on CV exposure among higher-risk, urban youth, while the impact of CV on emerging adults in university settings remains poorly understood, even though this developmental period is associated with heightened risk. Much of the extant research has utilized a cumulative approach to study CV, thus, little is known about how different dimensions of CV (i.e., direct, witnessed, learned about) may be uniquely related to functioning. Method: The goals of this study were to: (a) examine the associations between cumulative CV and both adverse (i.e., posttraumatic stress symptoms [PTSS], anger, emotion dysregulation) and adaptive (i.e., resilience) clinical outcomes and (b) investigate the distinct ties between the three CV dimensions and these constructs. This study included 547 emerging adults from two universities that are located in two U.S. cities with high crime rates (M-age = 20.31, SD = 2.08, range = 18-28; 80.8% female; 57.8% white). Results: Cumulative CV was related to higher levels of PTSS as well as resilience. For the specific CV dimensions, direct CV was positively linked with PTSS, anger, and emotion dysregulation, whereas witnessed CV inversely corresponded with emotion dysregulation and resilience. Learning about CV was unrelated to clinical outcomes. Conclusions: Students in high crime areas are at heightened risk for CV, which may contribute to both psychological difficulties and resilience. Findings signal the need to better understand how to foster resilience among emerging adults exposed to violence in their communities. Clinical Impact Statement The present study found that emerging adult college students report experiencing high rates of community violence (CV). CV corresponded with higher levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms, but also with higher levels of resilience. There are different forms of experiencing CV, and direct CV exposure was related to more negative clinical outcomes than witnessing or learning about CV. Learning about violence in one's community was not related to clinical functioning.