Availability of community resources reduces the association among community violence exposure, negative emotionality, and substance use disorders

Abstract

Background

Exposure to community violence is associated with increased occurrence of substance use disorders (SUD). The self-medication hypothesis states that heightened negative emotionality may underlie the link between exposure to community violence and SUD. However, it is not well-understood if access to community resources, a broader public health approach, influences the purported psychological mechanisms underlying the link between community violence exposure and SUD.

Objective

We examined whether negative emotionality mediates the association between youth-onset community violence exposure and having a SUD and whether community resources (i.e., density of social services, health care services, healthy food) moderate the relationship between negative emotionality and having a SUD.

Methods

Moderated mediation analyses were used to test the indirect effect of negative emotionality and the moderating role of community resources on the association between negative emotionality and having a SUD.

Participants and Setting

A sample of 376 participants was collected from New Haven (ages 18–73, 45.7% Black, 44.1% White, 7.6% Hispanic).

Results

There was a significant indirect effect of negative emotionality on the association between youth-onset community violence and having a substance use disorder (indirect effect = 0.22, SE = 0.07, p = .001, 95 % CI [0.11, 0.38]; proportion mediated = 0.24). Further, increased density of community resources reduced the relationship between negative emotionality and having a substance use disorder (β = −0.23, SE = 0.07, p = .001, 95% CI [−0.36, −0.10]).

Conclusion

Increasing availability of community resources may play a role in alleviating the suffering resulting from violence exposure.