Exposure to community violence and Children's mental Health: A quasi-experimental examination

Rationale: Community violence and mental health problems are global health concerns. Yet, assessing the causal links between community violent crime and mental health is challenging due to problems of selection bias. Objective: This study examines the link between community violent crime and children's mental health problems, as well as the moderating role of parents’ mental health. Method: The study employs a representative sample of 404 children (M_age=8.99, range=7–11) from Bogotá, Colombia, as well as longitudinal geocoded data on violent crimes from the national police. To account for problems of selection bias, the empirical strategy exploits naturalistic exogenous variation in the timing and location of an incident of violent crime relative to assessment of children's mental health problems, combined with matching techniques. Results: Findings suggest an incident of violent crime in close proximity to children's homes is associated, on average, with increases in children's mental health problems by 0.28-0.38 SD; having parents with worse mental health exacerbates children's problems. Results from sensitivity checks and falsification tests further support the internal validity of the findings. Conclusions: Collectively, the results from the present study and those of previous research suggest that community violent crime has the potential to affect local residents negatively beyond direct victims, placing a heavy burden on individuals and society.