Injuries/Violence
Does school violence impact violence victimisation later in life? Evidence from a cohort study in Luwero, Uganda Amiya Bhatia* Daniel Carter Amiya Bhatia Rebecca Akunzirwe Mathew Amollo Karen Devries
Background. Schools shape children’s health as they grow up. There is limited research in low- and middle-income countries of how school contexts shape later life violence outcomes. This study investigates the role of school violence on later violence victimisation among young people in Luwero, Uganda.
Methods. We used three waves of the Contexts of Violence Against Children (CoVAC) cohort study conducted between 2014 and 2022 (n=2312, 67.4% follow up) in primary schools. We constructed three exposure measures of child-reported past year school violence: two at the individual level (any violence and violence relative to peers) and one for lower violence school contexts. Outcomes were physical or sexual violence victimisation in adolescence and adulthood. We fit sex-stratified multilevel logistic regression models with random intercepts for schools to obtain a conditional odds ratio for each exposure. Models were adjusted for age, sex, disability, school attendance, meals in the past 24h, paid work, and violence from caregivers or other adults.
Results. The prevalence of past year individual school violence was 81.6%. The median school-level prevalence of violence was 87.6% (IQR: 74.9%-93.4%). Individual experience of school violence increases risk of physical or sexual violence for young women in adolescence (OR: 1.48, 95% CI: 1.05, 2.07). Being in a less violent school is protective against violence in adolescence for young men (OR: 0.52, 95% CI: 0.26, 1.03). Cross-level interaction terms suggest individual experience of violence increases risk of violence in adolescence even in protective school contexts. Experiencing more violence than peers also increases risk of violence in adolescence for young men (OR: 1.68, 95% CI: 1.25, 2.26) and young women (OR: 1.51, 95% CI: 1.11, 2.06), with similar effects in adulthood.
Conclusion. Prevention of violence across all types of school contexts should be a key part of child health programming to avert later life violence.