Jeff R Temple

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston | UTMB · Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Background: Recent research has found that gender parity (i.e., the ratio of women to men) in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) disciplines is associated with sexual violence (SV) victimization for women. This finding may reflect a type of backlash wherein SV is a means of punishing women who are perceived to be violating their gend...

Purpose To assess what sociodemographic and victimization factors are associated with past year service use at community-based intimate partner violence (IPV) agencies. Methods Using a quantitative, web-based survey, we assessed sociodemographic characteristics, victimization experiences, and past year service use at community-based IPV agencies a...

Providers focused on intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual assault have increasingly added chat/text components to their phone hotline services. Despite increasing use of chat/text modalities on violence-focused hotlines, little is known about their use, especially with respect to user perspectives and experiences. Data are from an evaluation...

Decades of inquiry on intimate partner violence show consistent results: violence is woefully common and psychologically and economically costly. Policy to prevent and effectively intervene upon such violence hinges upon comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon at a population level. The current study prospectively estimates the cumulative in...

Reproductive coercion is any behavior that attempts to control the autonomous reproductive decision-making of an intimate partner. Very little research has focused on males who perpetrate reproductive coercion. Using a diverse community sample of young adults, we examined the prevalence of lifetime reproductive coercion perpetration and its relatio...

Being a victim of sexual violence (SV) is generally believed to be associated with subsequent sexual risk behavior (SRB) during adolescence. While this assumption makes intuitive sense, it is based on methodologically limited research, including a reliance on cross-sectional data. To address this gap in research, we test whether experiencing SV vic...

Being a victim of sexual violence (SV) has been associated with risk for teen pregnancy in cross-sectional research. However, longitudinal data are necessary to determine if SV victimization plays a causal role in early pregnancy. To address this gap in research, we test whether experiencing SV victimization in early adolescence is associated with...

As the second leading cause of death among Americans aged 10 to 34, suicide is a serious public health concern. One potential predictor of suicidality is dating violence (DV) victimization, such as any physical, psychological, or sexual abuse by a current or former intimate partner. However, little longitudinal data exists on the relationship betwe...

Reproductive coercion is a serious public health problem. Victimization has been associated with poor mental health outcomes, including symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression in clinical and college samples. We build on these findings by examining the association between reproductive coercion victimization and mental and be...

School-based programs that promote healthy relationships can effectively prevent interpersonal violence.

What the evidence says about gambling and interpersonal violence

The National Institute for Mental Health has awarded The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) researchers with a $3.5 million grant to continue studying teen mental health during COVID-19. Researchers from the UTMB Center for Violence Prevention and School of Nursing will measure the impact of virtual and in-person learning, the ability to acc...

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global mental health crisis that disproportionately impacts adolescents. Loneliness is a particularly salient pandemic psychosocial outcome to understand; however, research to date on this outcome is sparse and largely cross-sectional. In response, we examined pre-pandemic risk factors for pandemic loneliness. Further, we...

The COVID—19 pandemic and related quarantine has created additional problems for survivors of interpersonal violence. The purpose of this study is to gain a preliminary understanding of the health, safety, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on people that are experiencing or have previously experienced violence, stalking, threats, and/or...

Purpose The aim of this study is to determine whether COVID-19-induced financial impact, stress, loneliness, and isolation were related to perceived changes in adolescent mental health and substance use. Methods Data were from Baseline (2018) and Wave 3 (2020; mean age = 14.8; 50% female) of 1,188 adolescents recruited from 12 Texas public middle...

Purpose The prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) is alarmingly high among young adults. Alcohol use and depression have both been shown to increase risk for IPV. However, little is known about whether depression and alcohol may interact to predict IPV in couples. Methods The current study utilized a sample of 81 racially and ethnically di...

Me & You: Building Healthy Relationships (Me & You) is a multilevel, technology-enhanced adolescent dating violence (DV) prevention program that aimed to reduce DV among ethnic-minority, early adolescent, urban youth. A group-randomized control trial of Me & You, conducted with 10 middle schools from a large urban school district in Southeast Texas...

The Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS) is a self-report measure designed to assess anticipatory and consummatory pleasure, two facets of anhedonic predispositions. Despite its widespread use, the factor structure of the TEPS has yet to be tested in adolescents, who are at increased risk for psychopathology and undergoing rapid changes in...

Reproductive coercion is an understudied form of intimate partner violence (IPV) that occurs when a person attempts to control the autonomous reproductive decision making of their intimate partner. Previous research has demonstrated that individuals who experience reproductive coercion are more likely to experience other forms of IPV (e.g., physica...

School climate consistently relates to adolescent adjustment across academic, socioemotional, and behavioral domains. Although past research highlights the impact of school climate on youths’ experience of internalizing symptoms and violent behavior, examination of potential links with specific externalizing processes is limited. The current study...

Past research has demonstrated that romantic attachment insecurity is a risk factor for dating violence in adolescence. However, few studies to date have longitudinally examined whether earlier relational experience, such as perceived closeness with parents, may serve as an antecedent of this relationship. To examine longitudinal associations among...

Objective: Research and theory support alcohol use as a proximal antecedent to in-person partner abuse (PA). However, event-level research has not examined cyber PA thereby limiting our understanding of whether alcohol use proximally relates to cyber PA. Method: We collected daily data on alcohol use and cyber PA from college students (N = 236;...

Dating abuse (DA) victimization, alcohol use, and marijuana use are some of the most prevalent public health concerns among adolescents, particularly among Latinx adolescents. DA victimization was a robust predictor of subsequent alcohol and marijuana use among white and Black/African American adolescents, but existing longitudinal studies have not...

Texas public schools are now mandated to teach violence prevention, such as child abuse, family violence, dating violence, and human trafficking. One program, Fourth R, focuses not only on preventing violence but also on promoting healthy relationships and positive mental wellbeing. Incorporating this prevention into educational institutions improv...

A meta-analysis of 39 studies (110,380 participants) from 2009 to 2015 indicated that youth sexting increased over time. To inform current practice and policy initiatives, this meta-analytic update of studies since 2016 examined if rates of youth sexting have continued to rise and whether youth sexting differs by age, sex, sexting methods, and geog...

While studies have identified associations between cyber and in-person dating abuse, most research has relied on cross-sectional data, limiting the ability to determine temporality. This study tested the longitudinal associations between cyber and physical and psychological forms of in-person dating abuse. Data were from an ongoing longitudinal stu...

Hypogonadism is posited as a risk factor for depression. Limited evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) suggests that testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) may improve depressive symptoms in hypogonadal men. However, evidence from real world, population-based studies is lacking. Moreover, TRT prescription increased by over three-fold fo...

Impact of COVID-19 on domestic violence survivors in Harris County Texas

There is little research on virtual service models like chat and text services in agencies that work with survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual assault (SA). This study fills a gap in the research by exploring how chat and text services are provided in one IPV and SA-focused community organization. We analyzed chat and text transc...

Texas public schools are mandated to teach violence prevention, such as child abuse, family violence, dating violence, and sex trafficking. This report summarizes and outlines the law for public school practitioners.

Objectives: We conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial to test the a priori hypothesis that students attending an intervention middle school would be less likely to report physical adolescent relationship abuse (ARA) 1 year later compared with students attending a control school. Secondary objectives were to determine if the intervention r...

Teen dating violence is a public health concern that can lead to short- and long-term mental and physical health consequences, including depression, anxiety, risky behaviors, and unhealthy future relationships. Research shows that social and structural determinants of health, such as racism, low socio-economic status, and neighborhood conditions, m...

Sexting in young adolescents may be an online form of early sexual debut. We assess the link between potentially problematic sexting (i.e., pressured and receiving unwanted sexts) with known risky behaviors (i.e., substance use and early sexual behavior) among middle school students aged 12 and under. The ethnically diverse sample consisted of 1131...

Objective: To contribute a more complete and accurate understanding of rates of bias victimization toward Latinxs using self-report data from a community sample. Method: Totally, 910 Latinx adults from Boston, San Diego, and Houston were recruited through partnerships with community agencies and self-selection during local Latinx-focused events thr...

The phenomenon of “slutpages,” tied to high schools, fraternities, and the military, used to post, share, and comment on nude and semi-nude images of women, has emerged in mass media. To our knowledge, this is the first study to empirically investigate slutpage use behaviors including: visiting slutpages, posting nude images/videos online without c...

The majority of health research uses a deductive approach to measure stressful life events, despite evidence that perception of what is stressful varies. The goal of this project was to 1) describe the distribution of self-identified most stressful life events in a cohort of women who experienced a perinatal loss (stillbirth or neonatal death) or l...

Objective: Despite increased research on emerging adults and interpersonal violence, evidence on the role of college attendance in risk for dating violence and sexual assault is mixed. We examined the role of college attendance on victimization risk in emerging adulthood. Participants: Participants were a diverse longitudinal sample of 630 emerging...

Introduction A sizable minority of youth are sexting; however there are likely large individual differences in sexting and sexual behaviors, yet to be captured. A Latent Class Analysis was used to identify subgroups of youth characterized by differential engagement in sexting and sexual behaviors. Methods Participants were an ethnically diverse sa...

Despite the recent surge of sexting research, the link between sexting and psychosocial health remains inconclusive. To address this gap in the literature, we examined the link between multiple forms of sexting and a range of psychosocial health problems. Data were from a randomized controlled trial of a school-based dating violence prevention prog...

Background Few studies are dedicated to understanding the extent and impact of sexual harassment among medical students. The aim of this study was to use behaviorally specific measures to examine prevalence of sexual harassment toward medical students. Associated mental health and academic impacts were also studied. Methods A multisite survey was...

In the face of increasing risk for intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual assault during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an urgent need to understand the experiences of the workforce providing support to survivors, as well as the evolving service delivery methods, shifting safety planning approaches, and occupational stress of frontline workers...

We examined sociodemographic and psychosocial risk factors that moderate the (poly) substance use and dating violence victimization and perpetration relationship among emerging adults. Using an ethnically diverse sample ( N = 698), we used latent class analyses to identify mutually exclusive groups based on monthly and past-year substance use. We t...

This formative research study was designed to collect opinion data from adolescents historically underrepresented in adolescent dating abuse (ADA) research measure development. Eight in-person focus groups and 7 telephone-based one-on-one interviews were conducted with U.S. youth aged from 11 to 20 years ( N=48). We conducted two focus groups with...

Purpose Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) is posited to reduce the risk of depression and anxiety. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess incident TRT prescribing patterns in a nationally representative sample of men with depression and anxiety in the US. Methods This study included 5,565,649 men, aged 40-65 years, who were enrol...

Teen dating violence (TDV) is a public health concern that can lead to long-term mental and physical health consequences, such as depression, anxiety, risky behaviors, and unhealthy adult relationships. In the USA, over 20 states have laws requiring school districts or public health districts to incorporate a TDV prevention program, yet districts a...

Sexting is the sharing of sexually explicit images, videos, and/or messages via electronic devices. Prevalence estimates of sexting have varied substantially, potentially due to broad age ranges being examined. The current study sought to synthesize relevant findings examining the prevalence of consensual and non-consensual sexting in a specific de...

Background Due to associated trauma, exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is considered a form of child maltreatment, and is associated with heightened risk for mental health problems. Objective To evaluate associations between exposure to interparental IPV and the prospective development of borderline features in adolescents. Participants...

In Reply Van Ouytsel aptly underscores areas within the sexting literature that must be addressed to move the field forward. As emphasized in our work¹,2 as well as in the work of others,³ a unified conceptualization and approach to researching sexting is needed and, in this reply, we take the opportunity to provide methodologic recommendations for...

Technological advances provide greater opportunity for electronic communication to occur within romantic relationships. Sexting, defined as sending sexually explicit content via electronic mediums, is one such type of communication and its association with alcohol use and partner violence is supported by existing research. We extend this knowledge...

According to the FBI, mass shootings are defined as an event where four or more victims are murdered. To reduce mass violence, evidence points to restricting firearm access on the basis of dangerous behaviors, such as domestic violence, rather than restricting gun ownership based on mental illness.

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether dating violence victimization (psychological, physical, and sexual) and substance use (alcohol and marijuana) predicted sexual behaviors that increase risk for poor outcomes from ages 15-19. Adolescents (N = 1042; 56% female) were recruited from high schools in Southeast Texas in 2010 and fo...

Objectives. To test the efficacy of Me & You, a multilevel technology-enhanced adolescent dating violence (DV) intervention, in reducing DV perpetration and victimization among ethnic-minority early adolescent youths. We assessed secondary impact for specific DV types and psychosocial outcomes.Methods. We conducted a group-randomized controlled tri...

Purpose: To investigate how demographic factors, dating, and sexual behaviors are related to both initial and changing rates of sexting over time, we examined sexting involvement among ethnically diverse adolescents over a 4-year period. Methods: A total of 1,042 participants from seven public high schools throughout southeast Texas (Dating it S...

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine whether adverse mental health (i.e., symptoms of anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression) mediated the relation between childhood physical abuse (CPA) and physical dating violence (DV) victimization/perpetration in young adulthood. Method: We used four waves of data from an ongoi...

Importance Sexting is the exchange of sexual messages, photographs, or videos via technological devices and is common and increasing among youth. Although various studies have examined the association between sexting, sexual behaviors, and mental health, results are mixed. Objective To provide a meta-analytic synthesis of studies examining the ass...

Introduction: While adolescent sexting, or the sending of sexually explicit images, has been cross-sectionally associated with bullying and cyberbullying, there is a lack of longitudinal studies in this area. To address this gap in the literature, we examined the longitudinal link between sexting and 1) traditional, in-person, bullying victimizati...

Adolescent sexting remains an important public health issue because of the potential for psychosocial and legal consequences. This article briefly reviews the current state of the science of adolescent sexting research. It serves as an up-to-date and data-driven resource to school nurses and school staff to help augment understanding and facilitate...

The phenomenon of teen sexting emerged as a result of the proliferation of digital technology. More than 40 studies have established that teen sexting occurs relatively frequently and is a rising trend, commensurate with the ubiquity of smartphone ownership in teens. Studies have shown that sexting is associated with incidences of increased sexual...

Borderline personality pathology is a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive interpersonal deficits that onset during adolescence. Risk factors for borderline personality pathology include maladaptive interpersonal dynamics within attachment relationships. Given the shift toward emphasizing romantic relationships during adolescence as an...

It is estimated that upward of 15.5 million children live in homes where they are exposed to physical and psychological intimate partner violence (IPV). Research indicates that IPV can have deleterious effects on children, including a variety of psychosocial problems, although there is much variability in outcomes of children exposed to IPV. Indivi...

This study examines the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between weapon carrying and cyberbullying (i.e., perpetration, victimization, and perpetration/victimization) and explore the relationship directions. Four waves of data were used from an ongoing longitudinal study. Participants were 1,042 adolescents, including 55.9 percent fema...

Intimate-partner violence (IPV) in adolescent and young-adult dating relationships is a prevalent and serious public health problem. The measurement of IPV across adolescence has most commonly relied on the Conflict in Adolescent Dating Relationship Inventory (CADRI; Wolfe et al., 2001), which postulates 5 distinct yet related types of IPV (i.e., t...

Objective: Maltreatment exposure is a robust predictor of adolescent depression. Yet despite this well-documented association, few studies have simultaneously examined how maltreatment subtypes relate to qualitatively distinct depressive symptoms. The present multiwave longitudinal study addressed this gap in the literature by examining how differ...

Using four data waves from an ongoing longitudinal study, we examined the longitudinal association between weapon carrying and bullying (i.e., bully, victim, bully‐victim). Participants were 1,042 adolescents (55.9% female) recruited from Texas high schools, including Hispanic (31.7%), White (30.3%), African American (26.6%), and other (11.4%) with...

While prior research has identified multiple associations between engagement in sexting and risky behaviors, most existing studies do not take into account the contexts in which sexting occurs. The present study extends prior research by examining whether the associations between adolescents' sexting behavior and engagement in substance use, sexual...

Teen dating violence is a pervasive issue in adolescence and has been linked to maladjustment (Temple, Shorey, Fite et al., 2013). Physical dating violence is a particularly significant problem with one in five adolescents reporting experiencing physical teen dating violence (TDV; Wincentak et al., 2017). Acceptance of violence has been suggested t...

A large literature documents that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms are associated with intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration among adults. However, research on this relationship among adolescents and young adults has been plagued by methodological flaws (e.g., cross-sectional designs). Thus, the purpose of the present study was...

This entry discusses sexting, the sending of self‐made sexually explicit text messages, images, and videos through a computer or a mobile phone. It provides an overview of how the study of sexting has evolved, as well as of the different domains of research, including motives for individuals to engage in sexting, psychological associations of sexti...

The Borderline Personality Features Scale for Children (BPFS-C) was recently shortened using item response theory to an 11-item version that is optimal for use in epidemiological studies and repeated assessment over time. Only 1 study has examined invariance of the BPFS-C-11 items across gender and no study has done so over time. The present study...

The purpose of this study was to investigate same-day alcohol or marijuana use and dating abuse (DA) perpetration in a sample of 60 noncollege-attending young adults. Participants reported daily data for 3 months. DA perpetration was more likely on days when participants also reported alcohol use (odds ratio [OR] = 2.17, 95% confidence interval [CI...

In Reply We appreciate the comments by Reed et al on our article¹ and for drawing attention to a pressing concern for parents, educators, and practitioners: that the sharing of sexually explicit images and videos can leave teenagers vulnerable to having their sexts forwarded or shared without consent.

We examined whether the frequency of recent physical and sexual teen dating violence (TDV) victimization is positively associated with trauma symptom clusters (re-experiencing, avoidance, and hyperarousal), and whether these symptom clusters, in turn, are positively associated with the frequency of later TDV victimization. Participants were recruit...

Purpose: The objective of this meta-analysis was to provide a synthesis of studies examining the prevalence of unwanted online exposure and solicitation of a sexual nature among youth, and to determine if prevalence varies by youth age, gender, year of study data collection, or study geographical location. Method: Eligible studies from January 1...

Informed by alcohol myopia theory and Leonard’s (1993) heuristic model of intimate partner violence (IPV), we hypothesized that alcohol problems would positively relate to IPV among men with high, but not low, trait jealousy. We collected cross-sectional, self-report data from 74 men arrested for domestic violence and court-ordered to batterer inte...

Objective: Beliefs about the acceptability of intimate partner violence (IPV) are associated with the perpetration of IPV among adolescents. However, minimal research has examined whether this association persists across time or whether there is a bidirectional association between acceptability of IPV and the perpetration of IPV. The purpose of th...

In this introductory chapter, we explore the debate surrounding intimate self-disclosures through social media. Discussions concerning sexting and sexting related incidents are associated with social media affordances. In particular, we investigate how digital media content’s persistence, visibility, spreadability and searchability are linked to ch...

Objectives: With our study we aimed to (1) understand what factors uniquely conferred risk for physical and sexual forms of teen dating violence (TDV) perpetration and (2) create a screening algorithm to quantify perpetration risk on the basis of these factors. Methods: A total of 1031 diverse public high school students living in Southeast Texa...

Despite increased attention on parental intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure, a relative paucity of research has examined the developmental consequences of this traumatic experience within a life span approach. The aim of the present study was to examine how parental IPV exposure may relate to mental health during the transition from adolescenc...

Purpose: The objective of this study was to examine the stability of physical and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration from adolescence to emerging adulthood among sexual minorities. Methods: Adolescents who identified as a sexual minority (N = 135; 71.1% female; mean age = 15.02, standard deviation=.77; 34.1% African-American/bla...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the cross-sectional and temporal associations between cyber dating abuse victimization (CDAV) and mental health (i.e., anxiety, PTSD, and depression), and substance use (i.e., alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana and hard drugs). We used data from the 5th and 6th waves of an ongoing longitudinal study of ethni...

Importance The existing literature on sexting among youth shows that sexting is a predictor of sexual behavior and may be associated