Evaluation of Iowa’s anti-bullying law

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Inj Epidemiol
• Personal Author:
  Ramirez, Marizen ; Ten Eyck, Patrick ; Peek-Asa, Corinne ; Onwuachi-Willig, Angela ; Cavanaugh, Joseph E.
• Description:
  Background ; Bullying is the most common form of youth aggression. Although 49 of all 50 states in the U.S. have an anti-bullying law in place to prevent bullying, little is known about the effectiveness of these laws. Our objective was to measure the effectiveness of Iowa’s anti-bullying law in preventing bullying and improving teacher response to bullying. ; Methods ; Sixth, 8th, and 11th grade children who completed the 2005, 2008 and 2010 Iowa Youth Survey were included in this study (n = 253,000). Students were coded according to exposure to the law: pre-law for 2005 survey data, one year post-law for 2008 data, and three years post-law for 2010 data. The outcome variables were: 1) being bullied (relational, verbal, physical, and cyber) in the last month and 2) extent to which teachers/adults on campus intervened with bullying. Generalized linear mixed models were constructed with random effects. ; Results ; The odds of being bullied increased from pre-law to one year post-law periods, and then decreased from one year to three years post-law but not below 2005 pre-law levels. This pattern was consistent across all bullying types except cyberbullying. The odds of teacher intervention decreased 11 % (OR = 0.89, 95 % CL = 0.88, 0.90) from 2005 (pre-law) to 2010 (post-law). ; Conclusions ; Bullying increased immediately after Iowa’s anti-bullying law was passed, possibly due to improved reporting. Reductions in bullying occurred as the law matured. Teacher response did not improve after the passage of the law.
• Subjects:
  • Original Contribution
  • Violence
  • School
  • Law
• Source:
  Inj Epidemiol. 3.
• Pubmed ID:
  27358762
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC4896968
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  R49 CE002108/CE/NCIPC CDC HHS/United States
• Volume:
  3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/43601/cdc_43601_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 703.86 KB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:045c7bac0dd64151cd56e372dd7dd6b43aa77b38616f55952dd49ff3a5e2f07f