A Typology of Violence Against Self and Others and Its Associations With Drinking and Other Drug Use Among High School Students in a U.S. General Population Survey

Abstract

This study examines associations between binge drinking and other substance use and perpetration of violence against self and others. Data were pooled from the 2003, 2005, and 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, yielding a sample of 43,172 U.S. high school students. A typology was constructed to reflect four categories of behaviors: other-directed violence only, self-directed violence only, combined other- and self-directed violence, and no violence. Results from multinomial logistic regressions show that the frequency of binge drinking and other substance use were significant risk factors for each of the violence categories relative to no violence. However, the strengths of these associations varied across the violence categories.

KEYWORDS:

• aggression
• binge drinking
• illicit drug use
• suicide
• violence typology

Acknowledgments

This article is based on a study conducted under the Alcohol Epidemiologic Data System project funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, through Contract No. HHSN267200800023C to CSR, Incorporated. The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent the views of the sponsoring agency or the federal government. The authors thank Mr. Chiung M. Chen for his assistance in statistical analysis and missing value imputation for the study. The authors also thank the reviewer for his/her comments, which were very helpful and improved the overall presentation of the study.

Notes

^a Percentages weighted.

^a 1 = Other-directed only; 2 = Self-directed only; 3 = Both other- and self-directed; and 4 = No violence.

^b Reference group in parentheses.

^c 99.83% CI for race/ethnicity subcategories; 99.75% CI for age and alcohol subcategories; and 99% CI for all other categories.

*p < .0017 (i.e., .01/6) for race/ethnicity subcategories; p < .0025 (i.e., .01/4) for age and alcohol subcategories; and p < .01 for all other categories.

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