A Review of Information Published between the Years 2005 and 2015 on Youth Violence Prevention in the United States Open Access

Abstract

Violence among youth is a widespread and societal problem. In order to make progress towards preventing youth violence, it is important to describe current literature. The purpose of this study was to describe and synthesize youth violence literature published between the years 2005 and 2015 based on the social ecological framework. The review was conducted to describe trends in recent information about 1) individual, relationship, community, and societal factors associated with youth violence; 2) youth violence prevention efforts as they align with the 10 essential public health services; 3) types of violence involving youth; and 4) settings where approaches to preventing youth violence occur. Articles were selected for review by identifying keywords derived from extensive review of youth violence literature, followed by performing multiple searches using those keywords in the Education Resources Information Center, PubMed, and Web of Science electronic bibliographic databases. The 76 peer reviewed articles included in the study captured a range of youth violence-related information and were produced from public health and multidisciplinary academic journals. Over more than half of the articles (80%) described and or focused on community level factors associated with youth violence, in contrast to few (1%) for societal level factors. Nearly half (43%) of the articles described and or focused on evaluating effectiveness, accessibility, and or quality of personal and population-based youth violence prevention, while few described and or focused on the development of policies and plans that support individual and community youth violence prevention efforts. There were uniform trends in the publication of articles describing and or focusing on specific types of youth violence (bullying, dating violence, firearm/weapons, gangs) and an increase in the number of publications focused or describing general youth violence between the years 2005 and 2011. Over half of the articles described and or focused on interventions, evaluations, or programs that were based in community settings (61%) and close to a fourth (25%) were focused in school-based settings. The study provides insight into understanding the contexts of strategies to prevent youth violence and may offer greater knowledge about addressing the underlying factors associated with the youth violence.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: Introduction of Study

Introduction and Rationale 1

Problem Statement 2

Theoretical Framework 3

Purpose Statement 4

Research Questions 4

Significant Statement 5

Definitions 6

CHAPTER 2: Review of Literature

Introduction 9

Social ecological model of youth violence 9

Risk and protective factors associated with youth violence 13

Youth Violence in the United States 15

Magnitude 15

Prevalence 17

Consequences 18

Location 20

Participants 20

Approaches 22

Summary of current problem and study relevance 23

CHAPTER 3: Methodology

Introduction 25

Population and sample 25

Research design 25

Procedures 25

Instrument 29

Data analysis methodology 30

CHAPTER 4: Results

Introduction 31

Key Findings 32

Trends and distribution (social ecological levels) 32

Trends and distribution (essential public health services) 34

Trends and distribution (categories of violence topics) 36

Trends and distribution (intervention settings) 38

Other findings 39

Summary of results 41

CHAPTER 5: Discussion

Introduction 43

Summary of study 43

Limitations 44

Implications 44

Recommendations 45

Conclusions 45

REFERENCE 47

About this Master's Thesis

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School	Rollins School of Public Health
Department	Career Masters of Public Health
Degree	MPH
Submission	Master's Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Health Sciences, Public Health Education, Health Sociology, Individual and Family Studies
Keyword	violence prevention public health services collaborations youth violence social ecological framework adolescent violence intervention
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Miner, Kathleen R, Emory University
Committee Members	Thornton, Timothy, CDC Foundation

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