State laws addressing teen dating violence in US high schools: A difference-in-differences study

Abstract

Objective: Teen dating violence (TDV) is prevalent with lifelong adverse consequences, and strategies to reduce its burden are needed. Many U.S. states have enacted laws to address TDV in schools, but few studies have examined their effectiveness. This study aimed to assess whether state TDV laws were associated with changes in physical TDV victimization among high school students.

Methods: We used repeated cross-sectional data of high school students from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey across 41 states from 1999 to 2019. Using a difference-in-differences approach with an event study design, we compared changes in past-year physical TDV in states that enacted TDV laws (n = 21) compared to states with no required laws (n = 20). Analyses accounted for clustering at the state-level and state and year-fixed effects. We conducted sensitivity analyses to assess the robustness of our findings.

Results: In our sample of 1,240,211 students, the prevalence of past-year physical TDV was 9.2% across all state-years. In 1999, the prevalence of TDV at the state-level ranged from 7.5 to 13.0%; in 2019, the prevalence ranged from 3.7 to 10.5%. There was no significant association between TDV laws and past-year physical TDV. Six or more waves after enactment, we observed a non-significant 1.7% percentage point reduction in TDV in states with TDV laws (95% CI: -3.6 to 0.3 percentage points; p = 0.10).

Conclusions: We found no significant association between enactment of TDV laws and physical TDV among high school students. Further research is needed to understand how TDV laws are implemented and components of TDV laws that may influence effectiveness.

Keywords: Adolescents; Education; Laws; Policy analysis; Teen dating violence.

Figure 1.

Mean prevalence of physical TDV over study period across US states enacting and not enacting TDV laws, 1999–2019 Note: Prevalence of physical TDV is calculated among all students whether or not they dated in the past 12 months. From 2013–2019, YRBS revised the question to assess physical TDV and included a response option of “I did not date or go out with anyone during the past 12 months.” We observed that the percent of students who chose this option increased over time (2013: 28%, 2015: 33%; 2017: 35%; 2019: 37%). Among students who reported dating or going out with someone, prevalence of physical TDV also decreased (2013: 10%, 2015: 9%; 2017: 9%; 2019: 8%). Thus, the decrease observed in physical TDV reflects both fewer students dating and decreased reporting of TDV within dating relationships.

Figure 2.

Event study: TDV law enactment and physical TDV, 1999–2019 Note: Each dot plots coefficient estimates from the event study specification and vertical bars denote 95% CIs. The x-axis refers to the time (in waves) relative to implementation of TDV laws, and the y-axis is the estimated percentage point difference in TDV between states that enacted a TDV law and states that did not. Estimates were obtained using a staggered implementation difference-in-differences design, and standard errors were clustered at the state-level. The regression was adjusted for state-level covariates: percent low-income uninsured children, National School Lunch program participation, governor political party affiliation, pupil-teacher ratio, and anti-bullying laws.