Study Links Poor Health, Violence in Urban Children

A study conducted by Shakira F. Suglia at the Harvard School of Public Health has shown that adolescents who have witnessed violence may be more likely to suffer from adverse health effects later in life.

The study, which observed 15 boys and 28 girls ranging from 7-13 years old, was conducted in an unidentified urban neighborhood in Boston.

The study aimed to gauge the stress impact of exposure to violence by testing the levels of cortisol—a hormone that is secreted at higher levels in high-stress situations—in each of the subjects.

Suglia and his team took saliva samples in order to compare cortisol levels to parents’ descriptions of their children’s stress levels. They then analyzed differences in sleeping patterns, exposure to varying severities of violence, and degrees of worrying.

The study concluded that there was a correlation between alterations in the body’s stress pathways, cortisol levels and exposure to violence. The symptoms attributed to an increased exposure to violence are similar to those experienced by patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, though Suglia said the children in the study were not clinically diagnosed with PTSD.

“As a physician this kind of information is humbling because so much of what affects people’s health is outside of a doctor’s office,” said Thomas Lee, a professor in the department of health policy and management, who added that it is important to take into consideration exposure to violence when diagnosing patients.

“I am quite confident that exposure to violence increases depression,” he said.

Suglia cautioned that with all studies, confounding variables and sampling design can be a concern. The study tried to explicitly show that differences in exposure to violence were directly responsible for negative health-effects related to stress levels, but Suglia, said that “there is always the chance of some other type of violence exposure, some other form of stress that we were not capturing.”

Suglia said the study was conducted in a “homogeneous” neighborhood, in order to mitigate the risk of underlying differences in the subjects.