Violence disproportionately affects African American youth. In addition to death and injury, violence exposure has significant psychological consequences, including traumatic stress symptoms and internalizing problems. Self-directed violence has shown startling and disproportionate growth among African American youth, with suicide rates nearly doubling from 2007 to 2018. Current prevention strategies have limited effectiveness. This project evaluates the impact of a multisystemic prevention program designed to reduce health disparities in violence by promoting equity in African American youths' experiences in education and law enforcement systems. This intervention has the potential to reduce morbidity and mortality among African American youth, promote overall quality of life, and reduce the societal costs associated with both interpersonal violence and suicidality. The proposed project will examine community-level changes using a multiple baseline experimental design that randomizes the start of the intervention in four communities, each comprising a police precinct and middle school. The intervention will consist of (a) school-based intervention components including a culturally responsive, community-inclusive adaptation of a whole-school climate intervention (School-wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports), and culturally responsive practices training and coaching; (b) law enforcement-based intervention components representing procedural justice interventions, including training and coaching on de-escalation with trauma-exposed youth and training in disproportionate minority contact, and (c) an integrated community intervention that includes increased collaboration among youth-serving agencies to reduce the burden on law enforcement, and strategies for community-building between police officers, school personnel, and youth through team-oriented contact. Outcomes will be measured using archival data from the schools and police department as well as survey data from youth, school personnel, and police officers. Aim 1 is to evaluate the impact on interpersonal violence among youth, as measured by individual-level, school-level, and precinct-level data. Aim 2 is to evaluate the impact on suicidality among youth, as measured by completed suicides and proximal precedents for suicide, including attempts and ideation. Aim 3 is to evaluate the impact on overall rates and disproportionality of school-based exclusionary discipline practices; effective pedagogy; and overall rates and disproportionality of juvenile arrests and police use-of-force. Aim 4 is to evaluate specific intervention components by determining their effects on hypothesized mechanisms of change at the individual, teacher, school, and law enforcement levels. This intervention has the potential to reduce morbidity and mortality among African American youth, promote overall quality of life, and reduce the societal costs associated with both interpersonal violence and suicidality
Interpersonal or community violence is a long-standing health disparity that disproportionately affects African American youth, and suicide is disproportionately increasing among African American youth. This project evaluates the impact of a multisystemic prevention program designed to reduce health disparities in violence by promoting equity in African American youths' experiences in education and law enforcement systems. This intervention has the potential to reduce morbidity and mortality among African American youth, promote overall quality of life, and reduce the societal costs associated with both interpersonal violence and suicidality.