College of Arts & Sciences
Department of Psychology
Department of Psychology
Publications

Marginal structural models for estimating the longitudinal effects of community violence exposure on youths’ internalizing and externalizing symptoms (Kennedy et al.)

Title

Marginal structural models for estimating the longitudinal effects of community violence exposure on youths’ internalizing and externalizing symptoms

Abstract

Objective: Longitudinal observational data pose a challenge for causal inference when the exposure of interest varies over time alongside time-dependent confounders, which often occurs in trauma research. We describe marginal structural models (MSMs) using inverse probability weighting as a useful solution under several assumptions that are well-suited to estimating causal effects in trauma research.

Method: We illustrate the application of MSMs by estimating the joint effects of community violence exposure across time on youths’ internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Our sample included 4,327 youth (50% female, 50% male; 1.4% Asian American or Pacific Islander, 34.7% Black, 46.9% Hispanic, .8% Native American, 14.3%, White, 1.5%, Other race/ethnicity; Mage at baseline = 8.62, range = 3–15) from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods.

Results: Wave 3 internalizing symptoms increased linearly with increases in Wave 2 and Wave 3 community violence exposure, whereas effects on externalizing symptoms were quadratic for Wave 2 community violence exposure and linear for Wave 3. These results fail to provide support for the desensitization model of community violence exposure.

Conclusion: MSMs are a useful tool for researchers who rely on longitudinal observational data to estimate causal effects of time-varying exposures, as is often the case in the study of psychological trauma.

Citation

Kennedy, T. M., Kennedy, E. H., & Ceballo, R. (2023). Marginal structural models for estimating the longitudinal effects of community violence exposure on youths’ internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 15(6), 906–916. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0001398