Community violence exposure. Adverse childhood experiences and posttraumatic distress in a national sample of urban workers

Violence continues to plague urban communities. The impact of community violence has been widely researched in children and adolescents; however, adult members of urban communities have been largely overlooked. The current study investigated the community violence exposure of 284 urban community development workers across five U.S. cities. Exposure to community violence, history of adverse childhood experiences, and current level of posttraumatic distress were assessed in order to test the hypothesis that adverse childhood experiences moderate the relationship between community violence exposure and posttraumatic distress. The findings indicate that urban workers are exposed to high levels of community violence with 74.9% reporting direct victimization and 99% reporting indirect violence exposure. In addition, 99% of participants reported exposure to adverse childhood experiences, and 14% of the sample met the diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A multiple regression analysis confirmed that adverse childhood experiences and community violence exposure were significantly positively related to PTSD. However, the significant interaction between the two predictors was suppressing rather than enhancing, indicating the salience of ACEs over and above community violence in predicting increased PTSD symptoms when both variables are present. Implications for urban work agencies are discussed.