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Direct violent abuse and trauma have well-known negative effects. To learn more about indirect exposure to violence, researchers prospectively studied 1915 youths — aged 9 to 15 (mean age, 12) from 79 Chicago neighborhoods that were balanced for demographic characteristics — at three time junctures roughly 2 years apart.
In addition to home, school, and community characteristics, participants were asked whether in the year before the second time juncture they had been directly victimized by violence (shoved, kicked, punched, attacked with a weapon, shot or shot at, threatened, or chased with intent of injury) or had witnessed any of those acts, seen anyone killed, heard a gunshot, or found a dead body. They were also asked about substance us…