The Role of Social Support in the Associations Between Neighborhood Violence and Internalizing Symptoms among Latino Youth

Abstract

Latino youth are one of the fastest growing populations in the country and are at a disproportionately higher risk for being exposure to violence in their neighborhoods. Prior research has investigated the mental health outcomes of exposure to neighborhood violence; however, there are few studies on protective factors for the potentially negative outcomes of Latino youth who are exposed to neighborhood violence. It was hypothesized that neighborhood violence would have a curvilinear relationship with depressive symptoms, but a linear relationship with anxiety symptoms. It was also hypothesized that social support, from both family and peers, would moderate the association between neighborhood violence and both anxiety and depression symptoms, with family support expected to have a stronger buffering effect due to the Latino cultural value of familismo. The current sample included 144 Latino adolescents (N = 78 Males; M = 16.25 years, SD = 1.46) from a charter high school in a large, Midwestern city. Participants completed a survey that included self-report measures on neighborhood violence exposure, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, and social support. Neighborhood violence exposure was found to have a linear association with both anxiety and depression symptoms. Additionally, neither peer nor family social support moderated the associations between neighborhood violence exposure and internalizing symptoms. Future research should continue examining factors that may buffer exposure to violence in the neighborhood, particularly among Latino youth.