Author: Anna Hamilton Staudenmeyer

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13:

Limited research indicates that childhood violence exposure (physical, sexual, and witnessed) significantly predicts menarcheal age. Age at menarche serves as an important biomarker of women’s health, with earlier and later ages of initial menstruation associated with psychosocial and physical health risks across the lifespan, such as depression, anxiety, substance use, delinquency, sexual risk behaviors, reproductive cancers, type 2 diabetes, and other cardiometabolic risk factors. Despite the association between violence exposure and menarcheal age, study methodologies confound whether violence exposure predicts earlier or later ages at menarche, if early menarche increases risk of experiencing violence, or if shared factors predict both. The disproportionate risk of violence exposure facing low-income African American girls and the underrepresentation of African American girls in menarche research necessitates a specific look at this population. In the present study, 177 African American adolescent girls (ages 14-22) completed the Lifetime Victimization and Trauma History (LTVH). Age at menarche was collected from questionnaires completed by mothers of the participants and used to establish temporality. This ensured that only violence exposure occurring prior to girls’ age at menarche was captured. Prior to menarche, 27.1% of the sample experienced physical violence, 9% sexual violence, and 21.5% witnessed violence. The mean menarcheal age for this sample was 11.71 years, lower than the national average for African American girls. Regression models including well-established covariates of menarcheal age, such as body mass index (BMI) and maternal age at menarche, were used to clarify the strength and direction of the relationship between violence exposure and age at menarche. Outcomes of the study deepen our understanding of how violence exposure relates to an important index of psychological and physical health for girls and women, and provide new evidence of how this relationship varies by type of violence exposure. Enhanced research in this area reveals the need for increased coordination between primary care medicine and mental health care, or psychology embedded in primary care, particularly when thinking about girls who are at increased risk of violence exposure in childhood.