Assessment of Victimization and Risk Factors
Youth participants in the Denver Youth Survey and the Pittsburgh Youth Study self-reported annually whether they had been victims. Participants were asked if they had received injuries from an assault or robbery (e.g., been attacked by someone with a weapon or by someone trying to seriously hurt or kill them). Injuries were considered serious if they involved a cut or bleeding, being knocked unconscious, or hospitalization. Victimization was identified in the Pittsburgh study when the respondents were, on average, ages 16.5 to 18.5, and in the Denver survey when the respondents were, on average, ages 13 to 17. In Pittsburgh, a number of boys who had been murdered (n=14) were included in the victimization group. Weighted data for prevalence figures that correct for the screening methods of each study were used so that population prevalence rates could be presented.
Risk factors were selected from family, school, peer, and personal domains. Family factors included low socioeconomic status, parental crime, single-parent household, and poor parental supervision. Individual factors included poor school grades, involvement in gang or group fights,2 weapons carrying, participation in serious assault, drug use, drug sales, and association with delinquent peers. Also included were measures of a youth’s being oppositional, hyperactive, or impulsive. These measures were developed by Espiritu (1998) and employ a configuration of items from the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach and Edelbrock, 1987).
Risk factors were measured using information from youth respondents, parents, and, in Pittsburgh, teachers. Each of these informants provided useful and independent information about a youth respondent’s behavior and background. As a result of extensive collaboration between the Causes and Correlates sites, all of the measures used were very similar and, in many cases, identical. In addition, a rigorous effort was made to ensure comparability of measures used in this Bulletin. In Pittsburgh, all risk factors used were measured during the first 2 years of the study. In Denver, family and psychological factors were measured during the first 2 years of the study, and other individual risk factors were measured prior to or concurrent with the first reported incident of becoming a victim. Thus, risk is measured temporally either prior to or concurrent with reported victimization.
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