The Direct and Indirect Associations between Childhood Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Adolescent Gun Violence

Abstract

We examined whether childhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with adolescent gun violence and whether early symptoms of conduct disorder and/or exposure to delinquent peers accounted for the linkage. Participants were 503 predominately Black and White boys who were recruited in 1st grade from Pittsburgh public schools. Multi-informant assessments were conducted regularly from approximately ages 7 to 20. A latent socioeconomic disadvantage factor was estimated with census-tract and parent-reported data when boys were about age 7½. Latent growth curve models assessed parent/teacher-reported conduct problems and youth-reported peer delinquency from about ages 7½ to 10. The outcome was youth-reported engagement in gun violence by about age 20. We also controlled for race. Analyses examined whether the association between childhood socioeconomic disadvantage and adolescent gun violence was mediated through early conduct problems and/or increased exposure to delinquent peers. Childhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with adolescent gun violence, and some of this effect was mediated through peer delinquency and conduct problems. Specifically, childhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with greater affiliation with delinquent peers in early childhood, and early peer delinquency promoted a greater increase in conduct problems across childhood, and these conduct problems, in turn, led to an increased risk for adolescent gun violence. In summary, this study found that early socioeconomic disadvantage was directly and indirectly related to adolescent gun violence. Results suggest that interventions that aim to reduce conduct problems and deviant peer group affiliation in childhood might be important windows of opportunity for reducing gun violence in impoverished neighborhoods.

Figure 1.

Results from the final conditional model predicting gun violence. Statistically significant standardized parameter estimates are shown in the figure. Covariances between conduct problems and peer delinquency intercepts and slopes were statistically significant, but are not depicted in the figure. See Supplemental Table 3 for 95% confidence intervals, covariances between growth factors, and all non-significant parameter estimates. Indirect effects analysis indicated that there was a statistically significant double mediation pathway from socioeconomic disadvantage to (→) peer delinquency intercept to (→) conduct problems slope to (→) adolescent gun violence (β = 0.025, 95% CI [0.002, 0.088]).