Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Exposure to Violence and Middle School Students' Self-Rated Health in South Korea

Purpose           

Accumulating evidence has implicated that exposure to violence can have a detrimental effect on adolescents’ health. Also, gender differences in the association between exposure to violence and health outcomes in adolescent populations have received considerable attention in previous research. However, to date, most studies generally have discussed either the effect of peer victimization or child abuse on adolescents’ health, and few studies attempt to integrate results from both fields of violence. Furthermore, very little attention has been paid to the Korean adolescent population with respect to gender differences in the health consequences of violence exposure. For this study, we examined (1) the relationship between exposure to violence (peer victimization and child abuse) and middle school students’ self-rated health (SRH), and (2) if this relationship differed by gender in nationally representative sample of the Korean adolescent population.

Methods                                                                                       

Data included 1,731 middle school students from the 2011-2012 Korean Child and Youth Panel (KCYPS). Outcome variable was self-rated heath (0 = good, very good; 1 = poor, very poor). Focal predictors included: (1) exposure to peer victimization over the last one year from seven indicators: physically assaulted, sexually harassed, extorted, isolated, verbally insulted, swore or threatened (0 = never victimized, 1 = ever victimized), and (2) exposure to child abuse including verbally insulted, physically assaulted, scarred, or bruised (0 = never abused; 1 = ever abused). We could not distinguish various types of peer victimization and child abuse due to small cell sizes. This study employed logistic regression with a lagged dependent variable (LDV) to control for the prior period’s health status. Also, covariates included demographics (age, gender), socioeconomic status (parental education, employment status, and household income), adolescents’ health behaviors (physical activity hours, alcohol and cigarette use), and social factors (adolescents’ intimate relationship, adolescents’ perception of neighborhood, adolescents’ relationship with their teacher, parents’ knowledge about their children’s friends).    

Results

For total samples, both peer victimization (OR = 2.30) and child abuse (OR = 1.82) significantly predicted adolescents’ poorer health. In our subgroup analysis, boys who were exposed to peer victimization were more likely to report poorer SRH (OR = 2.82), while child abuse was not related to boys’ SRH. In contrast, for girls, we found that exposure to child abuse was significantly associated with their poorer SRH (OR = 2.21). However, exposure to peer victimization, which had a negative relationship with SRH in boys, was not significantly related to girls’ SRH.

Implications

Taken together, this study provides evidence that there are gender differences in the relationship between exposure to violence and SRH in South Korean middle school students. Our findings also suggest that the gender differences vary depending on the types of violence (i.e., peer victimization and child abuse) that adolescents have been exposed to. Implications are derived regarding the components that need to be included in future research for preventing detrimental health outcomes of exposure to violence in both boys and girls.