University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA, USA.
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA.
Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol. 2023 Jun;67(8):739-756. doi: 10.1177/0306624X211066835. Epub 2021 Dec 29.
Limited research has examined the extent to which adolescent delinquency predicts healthcare usage in young adulthood, including emergency department (ED) visits. This study used data from 3,310 adolescents (52.05% female; mean age at Wave I = 16.04 years) from the sibling subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). We examined whether adolescent delinquency at Wave I predicted ED visits at Wave III using sibling fixed effects models to adjust estimates for within-family unobserved heterogeneity. Increased violent, but not nonviolent, delinquency predicted a higher number of ED visits in early adulthood in the sibling fixed effects models. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between delinquency and ED usage using a sibling fixed effects design. Findings demonstrate that violent adolescent delinquency may increase healthcare usage and suggest the potential role of healthcare providers in improving outcomes for delinquent youth.
有限的研究考察了青少年犯罪在多大程度上预测了年轻人的医疗保健使用，包括急诊部（ED）就诊。本研究使用了来自全国青少年至成人健康纵向研究（Add Health）的兄弟姐妹子样本中的 3310 名青少年（52.05%为女性；第 I 波的平均年龄为 16.04 岁）的数据。我们使用兄弟姐妹固定效应模型来检验青少年在第 I 波的犯罪行为是否预测了第 III 波的 ED 就诊，以调整对家庭内未观察到的异质性的估计。在兄弟姐妹固定效应模型中，暴力犯罪而非非暴力犯罪预测了青少年在成年早期 ED 就诊的次数增加。据我们所知，这是首次使用兄弟姐妹固定效应设计来研究犯罪与 ED 使用之间的关系。研究结果表明，青少年的暴力犯罪可能会增加医疗保健的使用，并表明医疗保健提供者在改善犯罪青少年的结果方面可能发挥作用。
