Impact of Chronic Multi-Context Violence on Post-Traumatic Stress and Aggression Among Israeli and Palestinian Youth

Objective: We examined combined effects of chronic exposure to school, family, community, and interethnic-political violence encountered by Israeli and Palestinian youth. Our goal was to estimate the impacts of cross-contextual exposure to violence during childhood/early adolescence on post-traumatic stress (PTS) symptoms and aggressive behavior in late adolescence/young adulthood. Method: Participants were children and one of their caregivers first recruited in 2008 for an initial three yearly waves of surveys from three age cohorts (starting ages 8, 11, 14); a randomly selected reduced sample of original participants was drawn in 2014 to yield four-wave samples of Israeli Jewish (N = 162) and Palestinian Arab (N = 400) youth; sex of child was evenly distributed across cohorts as well as ethnic groups. At all waves, youth and/or their caregivers reported on youths’ exposure to violence. Youth self-reported PTS symptoms, and youth and caregivers provided ratings for a composite measure of aggression at all waves. Results: Regressions controlling social demographics and baseline criterion scores showed significant prediction to both PTS and aggression from chronic, multi-contextual exposures. For aggression, exposure to persistent interethnic-political violence was a significant predictor. For PTS, exposures to persistent interethnic-political and family violence were significant predictors. Conclusion: Chronic exposure to violence across multiple contexts–particularly persistent interethnic-political violence–from childhood through very early adulthood amplifies aggressive behavior as well as post-traumatic stress. Researchers should incorporate indicators of chronicity and cross-contextual exposure into studies on the effects of violence in the social environment.