Violence, crime, and abuse exposure in a national sample of children and youth

E vidence continues to accumulate that there are seri-ous consequences to health and well-being and soci-ety from childhood exposure to violence and abuse.1,2 Childmaltreatment, peer victimization, andexposure to fam-ily and community violence have been shown to be con-nected to developmental difficulties, problem behavior, and physical andmental health effects extending throughout the life span.3-6 However, the epidemiology of child victimiza-tion remains fragmented,7 with published studies8,9 on lim-ited portions of the age and exposure spectrum and only oc-casionally with a national scope. Controversies persist about themost commonformsofvictimization, ageofmaximumex-posure across type, and trends over time.10-12 In aneffort to improve theepidemiologyandmake itmore comprehensive, the USDepartment of Justice and the Centers forDiseaseControl andPreventionhavecombinedresources to support amore regular and systematic national assessment of children’s exposure toviolence, crime, andabuse. In 2008, the first such assessment, the National Survey of Children’s Expo-sure toViolence I (NatSCEV I),was conducted.13 Thenextwave inthisassessment, conducted in2011,hasbeencompleted.This articleprovidesupdatedepidemiologyon theexposureof chil-dren to violence, crime, and abuse based on those data