Although we found race differences in the outcomes, we found no race-by-maltreatment interaction effects. Therefore, after adjusting for race and SES differences in depression, heavy drinking, and violence, the consequences of maltreatment appear to be similar for Blacks and Whites. We had anticipated that there would be differences due to the fact that the socio-cultural environment and accompanying normative behaviors differ significantly for Blacks and Whites. Therefore, maltreated youth could either intensify racially normative problematic behaviors or alternatively could adopt problem behaviors that are not normative in their environment. Although we saw race differences in health-risk behaviors, both races experienced similar negative consequences of maltreatment. The fact that we found no differences in the types and severity of abuse between Black and White victims may account partially for this finding. The lack of significant interactions may also be due to limited statistical power given the relatively small numbers of maltreated youth. In addition, our findings might differ from prior studies [3, 10, 24] because of differences in sample characteristics (gender, cohort, geographic area), source of outcome measures (self reports vs. official records), and source of maltreatment data (caregivers’ or self reports vs. official records).
