SURVEY

Youth violence knows no borders

Violence among youths — including fighting and carrying weapons — is not the sole domain of one particular nationality, new research shows. It occurs at similar rates in five countries — Ireland, Israel, Portugal, Sweden and the United States — according to a U.S. National Institutes of Health study in the June issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Using World Health Organization data, the researchers found that the frequency of fighting (average, about 40 percent), weapon carrying (average, about 10 percent) and fighting injuries (average, about 15 percent) were similar among youths in all five countries. There were, however, wide differences in the rates of adolescents bullied once or more per school term, from a low of 14.8 percent in Sweden to a high of 42.9 percent in Israel.

“These violence-related behaviors often occurred together in adolescents cross-nationally. A large proportion of adolescents who fought also bullied and vice versa; the percentages of those both bullying and fighting were 29.5 percent in Israel, 22.1 percent in the United States, 17.8 percent in Portugal, and 15.9 percent in Ireland. This percentage dropped to 9.8 in Sweden, but this value was still relatively high considering that only 14.8 percent of Swedish youths engaged in any bullying at all,” the study authors wrote. They noted that aggressive and violent behavior among youths is a common public health problem around the world and that there appears to be an increase in violence-related death among adolescents.

“In the United States, physical assault is the sixth leading cause of nonfatal injury in 15- to 19-year-olds and the seventh leading cause in 10- to 14-year olds. Furthermore, homicide is the second leading cause of death in 15- to 19-year olds and the fourth leading cause in 10- to 14-year olds,” the authors wrote.

11 June 2004

 http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docid=519400

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