Working Together to Prevent Youth Violence

While every community has an opportunity to prevent violence, a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work in every instance, according to an article released in a special issue of the journal Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action. 

Each neighborhood and community has unique experiences with violence and different prevention resources available to them. These conditions highlight the need for community-research partnerships to enhance community capacity, employ local resources, and engage community members in the research process.

Violence is a leading cause of death and injuries for youth in our country: Emergency departments treated 700,000 violence-related injuries to children, teens and young adults in 2008 alone. Youth violence doesn’t only impact the victims; it can also affect the health of entire communities, through increased health care costs and decreased property values.

But neighborhoods and communities have an opportunity to prevent youth violence. This can be done by identifying the factors within communities that contribute to the violence and creating partnerships with researchers to identify effective, evidence-based prevention efforts communities can put into practice. The Division of Violence Prevention is dedicated to helping communities use these evidence-based efforts so they are able to create places in which youth are safe from violence.

Learn About Efforts to Prevent Youth Violence

Greta M. Massetti, Alana M. Vivolo. Achieving Public Health Impact in Youth Violence Prevention through Community-Research Partnerships. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action. 2010;4:243–251.