NCT06176300

Evaluation of Violence Prevention Strategies to Prevent and Reduce Community Levels of Youth Violence

VCU Healthy Communities for Youth: Evaluation of Violence Prevention Strategies to Prevent and Reduce Community Levels of Youth Violence

• Status: Enrolling By Invitation
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 3,390 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Virginia Commonwealth University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 12 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The goal of this research study is to implement and evaluate a comprehensive community-level approach, Healthy Communities for Youth, that includes both a selective hospital-based prevention strategy, Emerging Leaders, and universal prevention strategies that increase Positive Youth Development opportunities through participatory action research, stakeholder education, community mobilization, and an overall focus on increasing community capacity for prevention. Key project aims are to evaluate the impact of Healthy Communities for Youth on community rates of youth violence using surveillance data and evaluate the impact of each violence prevention strategy on proximal outcomes including their impact on risk factors and protective processes related to multiple forms of youth violence.

Detailed description

This project focuses on three communities in Richmond selected based on US Census Bureau block groups and their high rates of youth violence and concentrated poverty. The community-level effects of implementing the comprehensive community-level approach will be evaluated using a multiple baseline design. The three communities were randomly assigned such that the intervention would begin in one community starting in the fourth quarter of Year 1, a second community in the fourth quarter of Year 2, and the third community will represent a no-intervention control community receiving training and technical assistance at the end of the project. Analyses will be conducted on community-level surveillance data on violence-related variables to determine if the introduction of the community-level intervention within each community is associated with subsequent changes in outcome measures.

Conditions

• Violence
• Exposure to Violent Event
• Adolescent Behavior

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	PAR - the SEED Method	The SEED Method is an evidence-based Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach that engages youth and adult stakeholders in collective decision-making and action in supporting PYD opportunities in their communities.
BEHAVIORAL	PAR-Youth Voices	Youth Voices is a developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive PAR approach designed for African American adolescents. The curriculum relies on frameworks including sociopolitical development (e.g., civic engagement and social justice), racial socialization, and racial identity development. Youth Voices will be implemented in high schools serving the intervention communities.
BEHAVIORAL	Emerging Leaders hospital-based intervention	Emerging Leaders is a violence prevention strategy that provides evidence-based intervention and resources for high-risk youth and their families in the youth's home and community. Emerging Leaders consists of four core components to prevent violence: (1) brief hospital-based violence intervention, (2) 3-months of community case management, (3) an in-home firearm safety counseling program, and (4) an 8-week youth positive development workshop series.

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-02-16
• Primary completion: 2026-03-30
• Completion: 2026-03-30
• First posted: 2023-12-19
• Last updated: 2026-01-14

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States