Teen-age runaways in the Midwest report that physical and sexual abuse were often the reason that they left home, according to the most comprehensive ongoing survey to-date of homeless runaway youths in eight Midwestern cities.
"We're not seeing a lot of functional homes sending kids out onto the streets," said Kurt Johnson, a research sociologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which is conducting the Midwest Longitudinal Study of Homeless Adolescents.
"They come from a home life that's not very rosy and they decide to go or are tossed onto the street," Johnson said. "The questions our research are trying to answer deal with not only how these teen-agers ended up on the street, but what the street then does to them."
According to the three-year, $3 million survey of 455 runaway teens spearheaded by sociologists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, runaways are far more likely than "normal" teens to suffer from mental disorders like conduct disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and severe depression.
For example, 74 percent of male runaways and 57 percent of females in the study have conduct disorder, compared to about 15 percent of the general teen population, Johnson said. Also, 23 percent of males and 43 percent of females show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, a finding Johnson calls "shocking."
"These people were involved or connected with gut-wrenching experiences, including sexual abuse and physical abuse," said Johnson, who collects the data from eight full-time survey outreach workers who visit shelters, the streets, bus stations, malls and other areas where runaways hang out, to interview them periodically over three years.
The ongoing research involves eight Midwestern cities: Lincoln and Omaha, Neb.; Des Moines, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Wichita, Kan.; and St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo. Of the surveyed teens in these cities, 55 are from Omaha, 111 from St. Louis, 60 from Des Moines, 60 from Lincoln, 49 from Wichita, 60 from Iowa City/Cedar Rapids, and 60 from Kansas City. Forty-four percent are male and 56 percent female.
The survey is the brainchild of Les Whitbeck and Dan Hoyt, two UNL sociology professors who have made a career of studying homeless teens. They are authors of "Nowhere to Grow: Homeless and Runaway Adolescents and Their Families," a book published in 1999 that resulted from a previous study of 600 runaways.
The current project is in its second year and has just released its first report. "The Midwest Longitudinal Study of Homeless Adolescents" is being sent to agencies in the Midwest that work with runaway teens. The report contains detailed information from interviews that the survey outreach workers conduct every three months with runaways who agree to stay in touch over the three-year period, typically from age 16 to 19. About 65 percent of the initial group of 455 teens have stayed in touch with interviewers, who are in many cases one of the few adults who express interest in their lives.
During the interviews, for which the teens are paid $25, Johnson said new insights are gained about the lives of these teens. For example, there are different gradients of runaways, from "couch surfers" who leave home and sleep on the sofas of friends and relatives before going back home, to hard-core runaways with their own subculture. Most runaways stay within a 50-mile radius, although they will travel to other cities, especially "magnet" cities like Seattle or San Francisco, Johnson said.
The study is important for a number of reasons, including troubling signs that runaway teens are poorly equipped for adult life, Johnson said.
"Society should worry about what we're doing to these kids by letting them live on the street and should ask some hard questions about why we're not helping them as much as we should be," he said.
A report summarizing findings from the Midwest Longitudinal Study of Homeless Adolescents is available, at www.mwhomeless.com. More detailed information is available based upon interview information on the following aspects of runaway life:Basic demographicsFamily historyRun historySuicide attempts and ideationPhysical and mental healthDiet and nutritionSubsistence strategiesVictimization and victimizing behaviorsSocial networksSexuality and pregnancyHelp-seeking behaviorsDrug and alcohol useDeviant peersSchool history and prosocial behaviors
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