Session: Correlates and Causal Pathways for Teen Dating Violence Perpetration Among Middle and High School Students (Society for Prevention Research 23rd Annual Meeting)

The purpose of this organized symposium is to describe the correlates and causal pathways for teen dating violence perpetration in middle and high school students. Teen dating violence is a pervasive and serious public health problem. This symposium includes three presentations that assess the relationships among individual, relationship, and community-level factors and teen dating violence perpetration.  The goal is to inform future prevention efforts.

The first presentation in this symposium, “Prevalence of teen dating violence and co-occurring risk factors among middle school youth in high risk urban communities,” provides the first estimates of teen dating violence from CDC’s Dating Matters®: Strategies to Promote Healthy Teen Relationships initiative.  Specifically, this presentation will describe the prevalence of teen dating violence perpetration in middle school students participating in Dating Matters®, and will examine the association with several cognitive and behavioral risk factors across multiple forms of teen dating violence.

The second presentation, “Prospective relationship between intimate partner violence exposure and teen dating violence perpetration: The moderating role of parenting practices”, investigates parenting practices as a moderator of the relationship between intimate partner violence exposure and subsequent teen dating violence perpetration in a sample of high risk, urban youth.

The third presentation in the series, “Individual, family, and community level risk and protective factors for teen dating violence perpetration,” describes associations between teen dating violence and several other risk behaviors and community-level risk and protective factors including poverty, community crime rates, and community disorganization.