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Abstract
Youth with child maltreatment histories are at significant risk for being sexually revictimized later in life. Investigations into the developmental paths from child maltreatment to sexual revictimization have primarily focused on mechanisms in these linkages. For example, depressive symptomatology and participation in risk-taking behaviors such as substance abuse and risky sex are documented to underlie associations between child maltreatment and sexual revictimization. However, this mechanistic research has been largely devoid of studies that examine the youths developmental context in paths to sexual revictimization. In particular, few studies tested the effects of family and community environments on pathways from childhood maltreatment experiences to youths increased sexual revictimization risk. The present dissertation includes two studies that addressed knowledge gaps on the role of family and community contexts in the development of risk for sexual revictimization among youth with child maltreatment histories. The first study tested depressive symptoms, alcohol use frequency, and number of sexual partners as underlying mechanisms in indirect paths from child maltreatment to sexual revictimization. Also, the first study examined positive parenting as a protective family factor in those links. Findings indicated that depressive symptoms mediated the effect of child maltreatment on risk-taking behaviors, linking an indirect pathway from child maltreatment to sexual revictimization via alcohol use frequency. Additionally, positive parenting buffered the path from alcohol use frequency to sexual revictimization. The second study examined the moderating roles of community disadvantage and engagement in the association between sexual abuse and sexual revictimization in late childhood and adolescence with sexual abuse being compared to other maltreatment types. Results suggested that sexual abuse led to increased sexual revictimization risk over and above other forms of abuse and neglect. Additionally, community engagement buffered this pathway, and the protective effect of community engagement was stronger among children compared to adolescents. The findings indicated that environmental factors moderate the link between child maltreatment and sexual revictimization, which is consistent with the ecological-transactional perspective and complementary to previous research on sexual revictimization. Future research directions, connections with existing theories, and policy and intervention implications of the findings of the current two studies were discussed.