Individual and community consequences and responses to organized violence: The case of the Mexican ‘War on Organized Crime’

Abstract

Living in violent places can have numerous and profound consequences for people, including diminished mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. However, the consequences of violent environments have overwhelmingly been examined in developed countries, particularly in the United States. This is an important limitation because the type and amount of violence that these developed countries experience is not representative of how violence manifests elsewhere in the world. In this dissertation I study the consequences of environmental violence before and during the Mexican ‘War on Organized Crime’ (WOC), a heavily militarized strategy that the Mexican government launched at the end of 2006 to control drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). Specifically, I leverage insights from environmental violence research in the United States and other developed countries and the distinctiveness of the Mexican context to examine how violence affects (1) children’s cognitive performance, (2) weight gain, and (3) fear of crime.