Poster #106 - Risk Factors for Youth Violence: An In-Depth Qualitative Comparison between Community Service Providers, Leaders, and Residents

• In Event: 2-002 - Special Poster Session 05 with Continental Breakfast Reception
  In Poster Session: PS 05 - Interdisciplinary Section

Integrative Statement

The United States is experiencing an epidemic of youth violence. Compared to other developed countries, we have three to 40 times higher rates of youth homicides (David-Ferdon & Simon, 2014). Research over the past two decades has identified prevalent risk factors for youth violence including family influences, neurobiological factors, academic failures, personality traits, exposure to violent media, access to guns, substance abuse, social rejection, poverty, and mental illness (Bushman et al., 2016). This research has led to systems of measuring risk in a given community in order to implement targeted interventions (e.g. Communities that Care; Hawkins et al., 2012). The majority of work, to date, has been quantitative in nature. This study seeks to explore risk factors for youth violence from the perspective of a community experiencing high rates of youth violence. Specifically, we aim to address the following research questions: (1) What are risk factors for youth violence according to community service providers, key leaders, and residents?; (2) What risk factors are commonly and uniquely identified by the various perspectives?; and (3) Are the risk factors for youth violence identified by individuals closely working in that arena aligned with the models of risk outlined in the literature and often measured in communities to implement targeted interventions?
This qualitative study draws from a sample of 36 key informants from a community identified as having risk for youth violence in a Southeast U.S. urban city. Ten participants were residents of the community; a public housing community with a total population a little less than 5,000 people, characterized as predominantly Black (97%), female headed households (61%), unemployed (52%), and below the poverty line (67%). Fifteen participants were service providers in community agencies/organizations. Eleven participants were community leaders or individuals who held leadership positions in central community agencies/organizations. Individuals participated in a one-on-one structured interview with research staff. Interviews were about one hour in length and were audio recorded and transcribed. Researchers followed a grounded theory approach to analyzing the data with open coding, consensus coding, question refinement, more data collected, and then coding again (Glaser & Strauss, 1965). The question from the protocol analyzed for this paper was “What are the things in your community that lead to youth violence?” and “What are the things in the community you serve that lead to youth violence?” for resident and provider/leader participants, respectively. Preliminary findings (see Figure 1) indicate that participants discussed risk factors in line with the ecological model of development spanning from the individual level (e.g. trauma, risk-taking behavior) to the macrosystem level (e.g. historical policies). In general, residents tended to discuss risk factors closer to the center of the ecological model (e.g. individual and microsystem level), where service providers and community leaders tended to discuss across the spectrum and include exosystem and macrosystem factors. Further analysis will continue to refine the themes, uncover the rates at which each participant type is endorsing particular themes and how this relates to models and measures of risk factors predominantly used in community intervention research.

Authors

• Katherine Ross, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Presenting Author

• Kelly E O'Connor, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Terri Sullivan, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Non-Presenting Author