The purpose is to describe the changing nature of adolescent and young adult dating relationships, particularly those marked by adolescent and young adult relationship abuse (YARA), to inform the development of more effective prevention efforts. Our goal is to synthesize our results regarding ARA risk factors informing intervention efforts sensitive to gender, developmental, and contextual characteristics. Our objectives, with attention to gender differences, are to (1) Document national and subpopulation temporal shifts in various forms of ARA from 2013 to 2016, and investigate the longitudinal development of ARA/YARA victimization and perpetration, assessing escalation/desistance; (2) Examine the context of ARA experiences in terms of relationship stability and developments in and temporal impact of identified risk and protective factors; (3) Explore models of ARA that draw on key concepts derived from social learning theory, feminist theory, and social network theory.
Subjects are youth respondents to the current national Survey of Teen Relationships and Violence (STRiV) study (n=2,354), drawn from the nationally representative Knowledge Networks panel. STRiV respondents (ages 10-18 at baseline in 2013) will reach ages 13-21 at the conclusion of STRiV2.
We will collect two waves of data (2015, 2016). We will maintain cohort contact and field the secure web-based surveys through the Knowledge Networks mechanism. The study is designed to investigate the following hypotheses: (1) 2013-2016 age-specific ARA prevalence rates will not significantly change. Moreover, we expect the relationship between ARA risk and protective factors to be stable over the study period. (2) As the STRiV cohort ages, respondents will report more ARA/YARA; the balance of personal and contextual factors will change as the cohort approaches young adulthood. (3) STRiV cohort reports of ARA/YARA will escalate over time within and across romantic partnerships. (4) Over time, gender and contextual impact on ARA/YARA outcomes will vary with implications for intervention design and practice
Descriptive analyses will document national trends over the period 2013-2016. We will conduct exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis on our proposed risk and protective factors. We will apply latent growth models and general growth mixture models to identify distinct developmental trajectories of our main outcomes and exploratory structural equation models to understand mechanisms of the proposed pathways.
We will generate practitioner-focused publications in the education and criminal justice fields; conferences presentations; progress reports; an archived dataset; and a final report. We will also disseminate project results to practitioners, educators, policymakers, and researchers through online portals and peer-reviewed journals.
This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law.
ca/ncf
