CSN Monthly Bulletin

Youth Violence Prevention

August 2005

This bulletin comes to you from the Children's Safety Network through CSN Discuss, an electronic forum for the discussion of child and adolescent injury and violence prevention and related issues.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Question from CSN
News and Developments
  1. PREVENT Institute and Workshop
  2. Blueprints for Violence Prevention Conference 2006
Articles and Reports
  1. Youth violence perpetration: What protects? What predicts? Findings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
  2. Early violent death among delinquent youth: A prospective longitudinal study
  3. Emotional distress, alcohol use, and peer violence among Mexican-American and European-American adolescents
  4. Parental influences on adolescent problem behavior: Revisiting Statin and Kerr
  5. Firearm violence exposure and serious violent behavior
  6. Effects of a primary care-based intervention on violent behavior and injury in children
Youth Violence Prevention Resources Available from CSN
  1. Technical assistance available from CSN

AVAILABILITY

Copies of many items can be delivered to state Maternal and Child Health and state public health staff upon request. Articles available by e-mail are so indicated. Some other articles can be faxed or mailed. To request an article or other publication, e-mail jhudson@edc.org with the item name, delivery preference (e-mail, fax number, or mailing address). This service is restricted to state Maternal and Child Health and state public health staff. Restricted time and resources forbids us from delivering articles to others.

URLs of publications that can be downloaded from the web are included in the bibliographic information.

A Question from CSN
News and Developments
  1. PREVENT Institute and Workshop

    2. The PREVENT Program facilitates the prevention of youth violence through education, networking and technical assistance. It includes two types of team-based education. The first is the PREVENT Workshop, a two-day workshop that explains the concept of primary violence prevention and the strategic planning process. The second is the Prevent Institute, a six-month training program that help teams develop leadership skills, create strategic partnerships, and plan and evaluate prevention programs. The next PREVENT Workshop will take place October 26-28, 2005 in Washington, DC. The next PREVENT Institute will begin in January 2006. Additional information about both events can be found at http://www.prevent.unc.edu.

  2. Blueprints for Violence Prevention Conference 2006

    3. Blueprints for Violence Prevention will hold a conference on evidence-based strategies to prevent youth violence in Denver, Colorado, on March 13-16, 2006. This event will showcase programs that have demonstrated effectiveness in reducing adolescent violent crime, aggression, delinquency, and substance abuse. Blueprints is an initiative of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Additional information can be found at http://www.blueprintsconference.com.

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Articles and Reports

  1. Resnick MD, Ireland M, Borowsky I.
    Youth violence perpetration: What protects? What predicts? Findings from the National
    Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
    Journal of Adolescent Health 2004 November;35(5):424.e1-10.

    This study analyzed the results of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to determine individual, family and community-level risk and protective factors for violence perpetration among a large sample of high-school students. The most salient risk factors for violence perpetration included history of violence involvement, prior violence victimization, weapon carrying, and alcohol use. The most important protective factors included high parental expectations for school performance, high grade point average, connectedness to adults and school, and religiosity. The authors found that the presence of protective factors significantly reduced the likelihood that a teen would perpetrate violence, even when multiple risk factors were present. The authors conclude that youth violence prevention strategies should focus as much on reducing risk factors as building protective factors.

    Availability:

    email or hard copy

  2. Teplin LA, McClelland GM, Abram KM, Mileusnic D.
    Early violent death among delinquent youth: A prospective longitudinal study.
    Pediatrics 2005 June;115(6):1586-93.

    This study tests the hypothesis that youth with delinquent histories face an increased risk of violence-related injuries and death (compared with youth in the general population). The authors found that the violence-related mortality rate for delinquent youth was more than 4 times that of youth in the general population. Delinquent African-American males had the highest mortality rate, but African-American males overall had the lowest ratio of deaths for delinquent vs. non-delinquent youth, since the death rate for young African-American males overall is quite high. Delinquent female youth had nearly 8 times the mortality rate of non-delinquent girls. Delinquent Hispanic male youth had almost 10 times the mortality rate of non-delinquent Hispanic male youth. Based on these findings, the authors offer several implications for public health policy, including the need to implement violence prevention programs in non-traditional settings such as juvenile detention centers.

    Availability:

    email or hard copy

  3. Tschann JM, Flores E, Pasch LA, Marin BV.
    Emotional distress, alcohol use, and peer violence among Mexican-American and European-American adolescents.
    Journal of Adolescent Health. 2005 July;37(1):11-8.

    This study, which was funded by the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau, assesses the effects of individual-level stress and coping factors - including alcohol use - on involvement in violence among a sample of Mexican-American and European-American youth. The authors found that higher levels of emotional distress - i.e. anxiety, anger and depression - were significantly associated with later involvement in physical fights and weapons exposure among both groups of youth in the study. These effects can be partly explained by alcohol use, in that teens with higher levels of emotional distress reported using alcohol more frequently, and greater alcohol use was associated with later involvement in peer-directed violence. There were slight differences between ethnic groups on the significance of these associations, with a more robust association for Mexican-American than European-American teens. The authors present implications of their research for violence prevention programming, including the need to incorporate strategies to protect against emotional distress and alcohol use into existing programs.

    Availability:

    email or hard copy

  4. Fletcher AC, Steinberg L & Williams-Wheeler M.
    Parental influences on adolescent problem behavior: Revisiting Statin and Kerr.
    Child Development. 2004 May/June;75(3):781-96.

    This study assessed the effects of parental control and monitoring on adolescent problem behaviors, specifically substance use and delinquency. The authors found that three measures of parental influence - parental warmth, parental monitoring, and parental control - significantly influenced their adolescent child's likelihood of engaging in substance use and delinquency, in that higher levels of parental influence were associated with less problem behavior. The effects of parental warmth were explained entirely by parental knowledge, in that parents who exhibit greater warmth towards their children are likely to be kept better informed and therefore be more knowledgeable of their children's activities.

    Availability:

    email or hard copy

  5. Bingenheimer JB, Brennan RT & Earls FJ.
    Firearm violence exposure and serious violent behavior.
    Science. 2005 May 27;308(5726):1323-6.

    This study assesses whether exposure to firearm violence among teens leads to subsequent perpetration of serious violence. The study followed a sample of 12-15 year olds in Chicago for several years to determine whether reported exposure to violence was associated with later perpetration of violence. Measures of violence exposure included being shot or shot at, or watching someone else be shot or shot at, in the previous 12 months. Measures of serious violence perpetration included carrying a hidden weapon, attacking someone with a weapon, shooting or shooting at someone, or being in a gang fight where injuries occurred. The authors found that, even after controlling for a variety of demographic variables, youth who were exposed to violence were approximately twice as likely to subsequently perpetrate violence than those who were not exposed to violence.

    Availability:

    email or hard copy

  6. Borowsky IW, Mozayeny S, Stuenkel K & Ireland M.
    Effects of a primary care-based intervention on violent behavior and injury in children.
    Pediatrics. 2004 Oct;114(4):e392-9.

    Physicians and other health care professionals are often asked to provide screening and referral services for a variety of health care concerns, including mental health problems and violence perpetration. The authors of this study sought to determine whether a screening and intervention protocol led to reductions in violence involvement and associated factors, including internalizing (i.e. depression and anxiety) and attention problems, among youth. A sample of youth ages 7-15 were screened for a variety of internalizing, externalizing (i.e. fighting and "acting out") and attention problems as they waited in a primary care clinic. Those who showed signs of having any of these problems were placed in either the treatment group (where the physician knew the results of the screen) or the control group (where the physician did not know the results of the screen and thus did not offer any follow-up services or interventions). Those in the treatment group received physician follow-up and/or referral to additional services, and the parents were referred to a telephone-based parenting education program. Results indicate that, at follow-up, youth in the treatment group engaged in less aggressive and delinquent behavior and had fewer attention problems than those in the control group. The authors suggest that the use of a screening tool can assist physicians in identifying and treating children with mental health problems which can have an important impact on later violence involvement.

    Availability:

    email or hard copy

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Youth Violence Prevention Resources Available from CSN
  1. Technical assistance available from CSN's topic specialists

    CSN staff are available to assist public health professionals in state health departments with work around youth violence prevention. CSN staff can assist with identifying evidence-based youth violence prevention resources, discussing strategies for how public health professionals can get involved with this work, and providing contextualized assistance based on the specific needs or situation of a particular state. Please contact Erin Lyons at elyons@edc.org with youth violence prevention questions.

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Next month's CSN Discuss Bulletin will focus on Young Worker Safety.

Please direct questions about this bulletin to Erin Lyons at:
Children's Safety Network
Education Development Center, Inc.
1000 Potomac Street, NW, Suite 350
Washington, DC 20007
Phone: 202-572-3732
Fax: 202-572-3795
Email: elyons@edc.org