Interaction of Disability, Race, and Adverse Childhood Experiences on Teen Dating Violence: A Logistic Regression Analysis Applying Discrit Theory

Background: Children with special health care needs (SHCN) experience more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) than their peers without SHCNs.ACEs are traumatic events, such as abuse, with negative health effects that persist into adolescence and young adulthood. For example, girls with SHCN with a history of ACEs are more likely to experience teen-dating violence (TDV). Additionally, children of color also have higher rates of ACEs and TDV compared to white peers, yet no existing research has examined the intersection of race, disability, and ACEs on TDV. Drawing on Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), the authors investigated whether the interaction between SCHN, defined as physical disability and mental disability, race, and ACEs influences the likelihood to experience TDV among a large school-based sample of youth who identify as female.

Methods: The sample came from the 2019 Minnesota Student Survey . The sample comprised 36,051 youth who identify as female in grades 9 and 11 across 334 Minnesota communities. SCHN was measured with two items that asked to self-report either a long-term physical disability or mental health problem. Race was collapsed into a dichotomous indicator (yes/no) of whether the youth identified as Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color (BIPOC). ACEs was measured with a sum of ten dichotomous events (yes/no). Gender expression was based on how others would describe them as very feminine, somewhat feminine, or equally feminine and masculine. The sample was predominately white (72.15%), and 49.26% identified as very feminine. Physical disability was indicated in 17.21%, and 31.92% reported a mental health problem. ACEs were low on average (M=1.02, SD=1.46). Path analysis based on logistic regression within Mplus was used to test the interaction effects on TDV. Missing data was addressed with full information maximum likelihood in all models.

Results: Base model with no interactions showed ACEs, physical disability, mental disability, and BIPOC to all be significantly associated with TDV, while controlling for important covariates. ACEs (odds ratio [OR]=1.47), physical disability (OR=1.22), and mental disability (OR=1.94) increased the likelihood to experience TDV, while identifying as BIPOC decreased the likelihood (OR=.84). The interaction terms between BIPOC and physical disability, BIPOC and mental disability, as well as physical disability and ACEs were not significant and dropped from the models. However, interaction between BIPOC and ACEs was found to be significant (OR=.93); based on interpretation of plots, interaction showed ACEs have a weaker effect on likelihood to experience TDV for BIPOC females compared to those who identify as white.

Conclusion: Results from this study were unexpected, and the authors theorize it may be from the novel control variables we used in the analysis. Very few studies on teen dating violence have controlled for both physical disability as well as gender identity when examining the association of race with teen dating violence. The interaction effect suggests that BIPOC females in this sample are shown to be more resilient to teen dating violence when having to navigate adverse experiences from their childhood. Further research that replicates these findings is needed with samples from different states.