Yang, Yingwei

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Florida Public Health Review Volume 17 Article 2 5-4-2020 Youth Violence Prevention in Florida: A Commentary Yingwei Yang University of South Florida, yingweiyang@health.usf.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/fphr  Part of the Community Health and Preventive Medicine Commons, Maternal and Child Health Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Yang, Yingwei (2020) "Youth Violence Prevention in Florida: A Commentary," Florida Public Health Review: Vol. 17 , Article 2. Available at: https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/fphr/vol17/iss1/2 This Research Brief is brought to you for free and open access by the Brooks College of Health at UNF Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Florida Public Health Review by an authorized administrator of UNF Digital Commons. For more information, please contact Digital Projects. © 5-4-2020 Protected by original copyright, with some rights reserved. YANG 12  Y O U T H  V I O L E N C E  P R E V E N T I O N  I N  F L O R I D A :  A  C O M M E N T A R Y  Yingwei Yang, PhD, MSc, BMSc   Florida Public Health Review Volume 17 Page: 12-15 Published May 4, 2020   ________________________________________________________________________________________Background | Violence is a long-lasting public health concern in Florida. Since 2005, when Florida enacted the “Stand Your Ground” law, the overall monthly rate of homicide has increased 24.4% and the rate of homicide by firearm increased 31.6% 1. Particularly, violence affects youth’s well-being and is associated with multiple risk behaviors and mental health issues 2,3. According to CDC’s Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS), 6,139 youth aged 10-19 died of violence-related fatal injuries in Florida during 2007 and 2017 4. Youth violence is preventable 3. To prevent violence and build safe environment for youth in Florida, four programs have been conceptualized based on the current literature and described below with detailed strategies.   Program 1: Florida Youth Violence Prevention Center | Background: Currently, five Youth Violence Prevention Centers (YVPCs) are funded by CDC 5. These centers can prevent youth violence by building the partnership between researchers and communities and creating comprehensive evidence-based program packages 5,6. However, none of them are located in Florida. Given the high prevalence of violence in Florida and the lack of a leading organization, a youth violence prevention center should be established.  Strategies: The Florida Youth Violence Prevention Center should go beyond the functions of the current YVPCs, with extended efforts to monitor violence in Florida, lead the violence prevention activities, link organizations and agencies, and create a safe environment for youth. The specific strategies may include:  1) Monitor youth violence and other types of violence in all counties and report the data to the national violence reporting system. The center should track changes of violent behaviors over time in order to implement appropriate prevention strategies and adjust for the current prevention programs.   2) Support public health professionals to identify factors that cause violence, prepare the community’s readiness to reduce violence and crimes, and eventually, transfer the academic findings into practice by building academic-community collaborations 5,7.  3) Provide resource and services to victims. Many youths affected by violence have limited access to health care system and resources (e.g. counseling). The center should provide cost-effective medical resources to help victims recover from traumas and injuries by partnering with clinical care organizations 8.  4) Build connections between local violence prevention agencies. Local agencies contribute to violence prevention by providing multiple services and programs for victims and survivors (e.g. emergency shelter, legal assistance, health education, child welfare projects). The center should lead the effort to build connections between them in order to share prevention strategies and balance available resources. Also, the center should assess the performance of these agencies based on National Public Health Performance Standards (NPHPS) 9.  Program 2: Policy Development for Disadvantaged Neighborhoods | Background: Youth living in 1Yang: Youth Violence Prevention in Florida: A CommentaryPublished by UNF Digital Commons, 2020 YANG 13  disadvantaged neighborhoods are more likely to be involved in conflicts and exposed to multiple health adversities 10-12. Consequently, they have increased likelihood of taking multiple risk behaviors (e.g. gun carrying) and suffering from various types of violence 13,14. Therefore, prevention efforts should focus on the improvement of these disadvantaged communities to create a safe and stable environment for youth.  Strategies: The purpose of this program is to provide policy support for disadvantaged neighborhoods in order to decrease violence and increase safety for youth. Specifically, the following strategies should be implemented:  1) Build business improvement districts (BIDs). BIDs refer to private non-profit corporations that are legislatively created by state government in disadvantaged areas 15,16. The purpose of BIDs is to improve physical environment in depressed communities and increase economic opportunities for low-income residents 16. Previous implementation of BIDs in California has shown significant reduction of crime and violence in disadvantaged neighborhoods 16,17.   2) Improve social cohesion and collective efficacy. In addition to BIDs, disadvantaged neighborhoods need to improve social cohesion (connectedness among residents) and collective efficacy (willingness to help others) to reduce violence and crimes 18-20. Community-wide activities (e.g. annual events) should be organized to provide opportunities for residents knowing and supporting each other, and eventually forming a shared community value 2.   Program 3: School-Based Education and Skills Building | Background: School is an important environment for youth. During the past two decades, many studies have confirmed the effectiveness of school-based programs in violence prevention 21-23. Therefore, school-based programs are critical for youth violence prevention in Florida.  Strategies: As recommended by CDC, school-based youth violence prevention should be focused on enhancing nonviolent attitudes, beliefs, and norms and improving youth’s skills to manage anger and resolve conflicts 2,24. This program is to provide violence prevention education and skills-building programs in the school setting. Specifically, the strategies include:  1) School-based education to enhance skills of problem-solving, anger control, nonviolent communication, aggressive impulse management, emotion regulation and empathy. These skills will decrease youth’s involvement of violent behaviors and promote their safety.   2) Nonviolent policies and norms. All the schools should have nonviolent policies and regulations, which highlight that violence is an unacceptable way to resolve conflicts and emphasizing that the consequence of misbehaviors is severe. By reiterating these policies, the school will eventually form a nonviolent environment. To speed up the process, school-wide activities are needed, such as violence prevention activities, family participation, and teachers’ classroom management practices 2.  3) Youth leaders to help build a violence-free school environment. Youth leaders will be educated with non-violence solutions and then spread the skills to other students. Moreover, the leaders will provide support for students affected by violence and get involved in violence prevention programs.  Program 4: Parenting and Family-Focused Interventions | Background: Youth will have an increased risk of violence involvement if they lack supervision from parents. Parents’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviors will affect youth’s physical, mental and behavioral health 25. Intervention strategies aiming to enhance parenting skills are effective in reducing the risk of violence involvement among children and adolescents 26. Therefore, family-focused programs are needed for youth violence prevention in Florida.   Strategies: The purpose of this program is to enhance parenting skills and home safety for children and youth. Specifically, the strategies include:  1) Improve parenting skills by providing knowledge about healthy child development, effective communication, age-appropriate rules, behavior supervision and nonviolent disciplines 25. These skills can help to build strong parent-child connectedness, good family communication, and a conflict-free home environment 2,25.   2) Help children to build positive relationships with other caring adults in the community, such as neighbors. These people can provide informal supervision, protection and guidance to adolescents, which will increase their perceived safety and lower their exposure to unsafe environment 2. These caring adults can also serve as a role model to guide youth’s behaviors 3.   3) Prevent youth to get unsupervised access to firearms at home. Parents should be educated to follow firearm storage practices to reduce children’s 2Florida Public Health Review, Vol. 17 [2020], Art. 2https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/fphr/vol17/iss1/2 YANG 14  unintendedly firearm injuries and deaths 27-29. Moreover, strong parental relationship and effective monitoring could reduce the likelihood of youth’s weapon carrying 30.    Conclusion | In this article, four violence prevention programs have been developed to address the policy, community, school and family needs, with an overall purpose of reducing violence and enhancing safety for youth. Collaboration and cooperation are necessary for youth violence prevention. The following organizations, agencies and collaborations are critical in violence prevention and advocacy: 1) Academic-community collaboration to enhance violence prevention by translating evidence-based research into effective practice 5,7; 2) Clinical-public health partnership to improve and evaluate the quality of medical support for youth victims 8; 3) Local violence prevention agencies to help deliver health care service to families and communities; and 4) Funding agencies, which will make important contributions by prioritizing their funding opportunities to youth violence prevention.   In conclusion, youth violence prevention should focus on comprehensive strategies rather than single-level efforts. Effective prevention strategies also require an interdisciplinary approach by collaborating public health professionals, clinical medical care, local organizations, school system, communities, and families.   References |  1. Humphreys DK, Gasparrini A, Wiebe DJ. Evaluating the impact of florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law on homicide and suicide by firearm: An interrupted time series study. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2017;177(1):44-50. 2. David-Ferdon C, Simon TR. Preventing youth violence: Opportunities for action. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2014. 3. CDC. Preventing youth violence. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/yv-factsheet508.pdf. Accessed 2019. 4. CDC. WISQARS™—Your source for U.S. injury statistics. https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/facts.html. Accessed 2019. 5. CDC. National Centers of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention (YVPCs). https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/ace/. Accessed 2018. 6. Kingston B, Bacallao M, Smokowski P, Sullivan T, Sutherland K. Constructing “packages" of evidence-based programs to prevent youth violence: Processes and illustrative examples from the CDC's Youth Violence Prevention Centers. The Journal of Primary Prevention. 2016;37(2):141-163. 7. O'Malley TL, Documet PI, Burke JG, et al. Preventing violence: A public health participatory approach to homicide reviews. Health Promotion Practice. 2017:1524839917697914. 8. Haegerich TM, Dahlberg LL, Simon TR, et al. Prevention of injury and violence in the USA. Lancet (London, England). 2014;384(9937):64-74. 9. CDC. National Public Health Performance Standards. Office for State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/stltpublichealth/nphps/index.html. Accessed 2018. 10. Gary TL, Stark SA, LaVeist TA. Neighborhood characteristics and mental health among African Americans and Whites living in a racially integrated urban community. Health & Place. 2007;13(2):569-575. 11. Mennis J, Mason M, Light J, et al. Does substance use moderate the association of neighborhood disadvantage with perceived stress and safety in the activity spaces of urban youth? Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 2016;165:288-292. 12. Reboussin BA, Green KM, Milam AJ, Furr-Holden DM, Johnson RM, Ialongo NS. The role of neighborhood in urban black adolescent marijuana use. Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 2015;154:69-75. 13. Willen SS, Knipper M, Abadia-Barrero CE, Davidovitch N. Syndemic vulnerability and the right to health. Lancet (London, England). 2017;389(10072):964-977. 14. Reid JA, Richards TN, Loughran TA, Mulvey EP. The relationships among exposure to violence, psychological distress, and gun carrying among male adolescents found guilty of serious legal offenses: A longitudinal cohort study. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2017;166(6):412-418. 15. Unger A. Business improvement districts in the United States: Private Government and public consequences. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG; 2016. 16. Brooks L. Volunteering to be taxed: Business improvement districts and the extra-governmental provision of public safety. Journal of Public Economics. 2008;92(1):388-406. 17. MacDonald J, Golinelli D, Stokes RJ, Bluthenthal R. The effect of business improvement districts on the incidence of violent crimes. Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention. 2010;16(5):327-332. 3Yang: Youth Violence Prevention in Florida: A CommentaryPublished by UNF Digital Commons, 2020 YANG 15  18. Fagan AA, Wright EM, Pinchevsky GM. The protective effects of neighborhood collective efficacy on adolescent substance use and violence following exposure to violence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 2014;43(9):1498-1512. 19. Thomas A, Caldwell CH, Jagers RJ, Flay BR. It’s in my hood: Understanding African American boys’ perception of safety in their neighborhoods. Journal of Community Psychology. 2016;44(3):311-326. 20. Sampson RJ, Raudenbush SW, Earls F. Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science. 1997;277(5328):918-924. 21. Lam S, Zwart C, Chahal I, Lane D, Cummings H. Preventing violence against children in schools: Contributions from the Be Safe program in Sri Lanka. Child abuse & neglect. 2018;76:129-137. 22. Elias MJ, Gara MA, Schuyler TF, Branden-Muller LR, Sayette MA. The promotion of social competence: Longitudinal study of a preventive school-based program. The American journal of orthopsychiatry. 1991;61(3):409-417. 23. Hahn R, Fuqua-Whitley D, Wethington H, et al. Effectiveness of universal school-based programs to prevent violent and aggressive behavior: A systematic review. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2007;33(2 Suppl):S114-129. 24. Vagi KJ, Stevens MR, Simon TR, Basile KC, Carter SP, Carter SL. Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) characteristics associated with violence and safety in middle schools. J Sch Health. 2018;88(4):296-305. 25. Burrus B, Leeks KD, Sipe TA, et al. Person-to-person interventions targeted to parents and other caregivers to improve adolescent health: A community guide systematic review. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2012;42(3):316-326. 26. David-Ferdon C, Vivolo-Kantor AM, Dahlberg L, Marshall KJ, Rainford N, Hall JE. A comprehensive technical package for the prevention of youth violence and associated risk behaviors. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2016. 27. Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D, Vriniotis M. Firearm storage practices and rates of unintentional firearm deaths in the United States. Accident, Analysis and Prevention. 2005;37(4):661-667. 28. Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D. Firearm availability and unintentional firearm deaths, suicide, and homicide among 5-14 year olds. The Journal of Trauma. 2002;52(2):267-274; discussion 274-265. 29. Grossman DC, Mueller BA, Riedy C, et al. Gun storage practices and risk of youth suicide and unintentional firearm injuries. JAMA. 2005;293(6):707-714. 30. Haegerich TM, Oman RF, Vesely SK, Aspy CB, Tolma EL. The predictive influence of family and neighborhood assets on fighting and weapon carrying from mid- to late adolescence. Prevention Science. 2014;15(4):473-484.                    Yingwei Yang, PhD, MSc, BMSc, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. Email at: yingweiyang@usf.edu   Copyright 2020 by the Florida Public Health Review. 4Florida Public Health Review, Vol. 17 [2020], Art. 2https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/fphr/vol17/iss1/2

Youth Violence Prevention in Florida: A Commentary

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Youth Violence Prevention in Florida: A Commentary

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