ABSTRACT
Increasingly, the public health and mental health literature has taken notice of the environmental effects upon physical and mental well-being of living in poor inner-city neighborhoods (Freudenberg, Galea, & Vlahov, 2006). Among a multitude of stressors associated with urban life, especially in poor, disadvantaged neighborhoods, interpersonal violence is recognized as a traumatic stressor with many negative health and mental health outcomes for children and adults (Horowitz, McKay, & Marshall, 2005). This chapter examines the direct and indirect consequences of exposures to community violence for families struggling to cope with the challenges of life in poor inner-city neighborhoods and the evidence-base for developing a risk and protective factor framework for public mental health policy and program planning.
