Investigating links between adverse and protective childhood contexts and violence later in life: Analysis of cohort data in England, Brazil & Uganda

调查不利和保护性童年环境与以后生活中的暴力之间的联系：对英格兰、巴西队列数据的分析

• 批准号: ES/X001792/1
• 负责人: Amiya Bhatia
• 金额: $ 32.07万
• 依托单位: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FX001792%2F1
• 关键词: Investigating; links; between; adverse; protective

Over one billion children experience physical, sexual or emotional violence every year and social inequalities in violence are large. The contexts children live, learn and play in can shape their health, employment, and educational outcomes. This project will generate new evidence on how adverse and protective childhood contexts affect children's use, or experiences of, interpersonal violence as they grow up. We propose to draw on high-quality longitudinal data about children's lives, including experiences of violence, in three independent cohort studies in Brazil (birth to late childhood), England (birth to adulthood) and Uganda (late childhood to adulthood). Our multi-country research team consists of social epidemiologists and social scientists with strong links to the settings of each cohort study. To ensure analyses and findings are informed by a wide range of expertise and experiences we will consult local stakeholders (young people, civil society organisations, health workers and local government staff) in each study setting and researchers from different disciplines during research design and dissemination. The World Health Organisation's (WHO) INSPIRE framework recommends changing laws, social norms, social safety nets, neighbourhood environments, households, and schools to prevent interpersonal violence. To advance such prevention efforts, violence researchers and practitioners need to know how childhood contexts shape violence later in life, and how contexts can interrupt or prevent violence later in life. Further, we need to understand if the adverse or protective effects of contexts differ for marginalised young people.The first phase of this project will define and operationalise contextual measures: we theorise that adverse childhood contexts are homes, schools, and neighbourhoods with violence and deprivation, and protective childhood contexts high social connectedness and support. We will use data collected on contexts to operationalise contextual measures specific to each cohort and refine measures based on input from local stakeholders, young people, and researchers in each context. Findings from this phase will highlight new opportunities to apply advanced statistical methods to improve how contexts are measured and defined in violence research. The second phase will test whether adverse childhood contexts increase the risk of violence later in life, and whether protective childhood contexts can mitigate this risk. We aim to conduct causal analyses of longitudinal data to uncover, for example, whether neighbourhood violence and deprivation in childhood could increase interpersonal physical or sexual violence years later - and whether a protective home environment at the same time, or later in life could prevent or interrupt these associations. Findings from this phase provide evidence for developing and situating contextual interventions to prevent violence as children grow up. The third and final phase of the project will explore how the effects of contexts differ for young people from historically marginalised groups. By applying statistical methods to test if the adverse and protective effects of contexts differ by gender, disability, ethnicity, sexuality, and socioeconomic position, findings will highlight which young people are disproportionately impacted by adverse contexts or less likely to benefit from protective contexts. Our approach offers opportunities to improve the use of contextual measures in research on violence and more broadly. Violence prevention efforts at contextual levels shift the loci of intervention away from the individual and are likely to benefit more people than individual-level behaviour change interventions. This research will generate new evidence from multiple countries that researchers and practitioners can use to realise the WHO INSPIRE framework on violence prevention and the Sustainable Development Goals related to violence.

每年有超过十亿儿童遭受身体、性或情感暴力，暴力方面的社会不平等现象非常严重。儿童生活、学习和玩耍的环境可以影响他们的健康、就业和教育成果。该项目将产生新的证据，说明不利的和保护性的童年环境如何影响儿童在成长过程中使用或经历人际暴力。我们建议在巴西（出生至童年晚期）、英国（出生至成年）和乌干达（童年晚期至成年）的三项独立队列研究中利用有关儿童生活的高质量纵向数据，包括暴力经历。我们的多国研究团队由社会流行病学家和社会科学家组成，与每个队列研究的背景有着密切的联系。为了确保分析和结果得到广泛的专业知识和经验的支持，我们将在研究设计和传播过程中咨询每个研究环境中的当地利益相关者（年轻人、民间社会组织、卫生工作者和地方政府工作人员）以及来自不同学科的研究人员。世界卫生组织 (WHO) 的 INSPIRE 框架建议改变法律、社会规范、社会安全网、社区环境、家庭和学校，以防止人际暴力。为了推进此类预防工作，暴力研究人员和从业者需要了解童年环境如何影响以后生活中的暴力，以及这些环境如何阻止或预防以后生活中的暴力。此外，我们需要了解环境对边缘化年轻人的不利或保护性影响是否有所不同。该项目的第一阶段将定义和实施环境措施：我们的理论是，不利的童年环境是充满暴力和剥夺的家庭、学校和社区，而保护性儿童环境是高度的社会联系和支持。我们将利用收集到的背景数据来实施针对每个群体的具体措施，并根据当地利益相关者、年轻人和研究人员在每个背景下的意见完善措施。这一阶段的调查结果将凸显应用先进统计方法的新机会，以改进暴力研究中衡量和定义背景的方式。第二阶段将测试不利的童年环境是否会增加以后生活中的暴力风险，以及保护性的童年环境是否可以减轻这种风险。我们的目标是对纵向数据进行因果分析，以揭示，例如，童年时期的邻里暴力和剥夺是否会增加数年后人际间的身体暴力或性暴力，以及同时或晚年的保护性家庭环境是否可以预防或中断这些关联。这一阶段的调查结果为制定和实施情境干预措施以防止儿童成长过程中的暴力行为提供了证据。该项目的第三阶段也是最后阶段将探讨环境对来自历史边缘群体的年轻人的影响有何不同。通过应用统计方法来测试环境的不利影响和保护性影响是否因性别、残疾、种族、性取向和社会经济地位而异，研究结果将突出显示哪些年轻人受到不利环境的影响更大，或者不太可能从保护性环境中受益。我们的方法为改善暴力研究和更广泛的背景测量的使用提供了机会。背景层面的暴力预防工作将干预的焦点从个人转移开，并且可能比个人层面的行为改变干预措施使更多的人受益。这项研究将产生来自多个国家的新证据，研究人员和从业人员可以利用这些证据来实现世卫组织关于预防暴力的 INSPIRE 框架以及与暴力相关的可持续发展目标。