Fear of Violence, Family Support, and Well-Being among Urban Adolescents

Abstract

Our \nstudy examines how the fear of violence and family support influence adolescent \nsocial, psychological, and physical well-being, after controlling for exposure \nto violence and a range of demographic factors. We conduct a secondary analysis \nof the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) data (N = \n1337) using mixed-effect, multi-level regression models for the total sample \nand for males only and females only samples. We find that family support is the \nmost robust, main effects predictor in all three models and across all outcomes. \nOur analyses show that the fear of violence is associated with increases in \nsocial problems (especially for boys) and with decreases in self-rated health. \nWe discuss the results and implications in light of sociological theories on \nthe health and well-being of adolescents.