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New Recommendations for Youth Violence Prevention
Research
On Oct 13-15, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH),
along with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other NIH institutes, held a
State-of-the-Science Conference to review the current evidence base on
preventing youth violence and related health-risking social behaviors.
Scientists from across the fields of psychology, biology, criminology,
sociology, economics and law, as well as members of the public, participated in
the three-day conference that resulted in a draft report from the panel of
outside scientists and experts, including several well-known psychologists, to
guide future intervention programs and research agendas across the federal
government.
NIMH Director Tom Insel began the conference by discussing the
tremendous public health burden caused by youth violence, from the loss of
educational opportunities to increasing demand on overly stressed mental health,
education, and justice programs. As NIMH went about setting priorities for the
institute, Insel said that youth violence was an area that needed support and
increased dissemination efforts.
A panel of experts from the fields of psychology, sociology,
biology, and law were brought in to identify the best practices across many
fields that were successful in preventing or treating youth violence, the
factors that contribute to violence and associated adverse health outcomes, the
safety and effectiveness of current treatments, and what the priorities should
be for future research. The panel includes psychologists Michael Cataldo, The
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Angela Barron McBride, Indiana
University School of Nursing.
Scientists were also invited to present their research findings,
including the literature review conducted by AHRQ. Several psychological
scientists presented their own research findings, including Benjamin Lahey,
APA's President of Division 53 (Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent
Psychology) and Chief of the Psychology Department at the University of Chicago.
Additional speakers included Terrie Moffit, University of Wisconsin, Rolf Loeber,
University of Pittsburgh, Rand Conger, University of California at Davis, Thomas
Dishion, University of Oregon, Kenneth Dodge, Duke University, Scott Henggeller,
Medical University of South Carolina, John Reid, Oregon Social Learning Center,
and Deborah Capaldi, Oregon Social Learning Center.
On Friday, October 15th, the panel issued a draft report that
included recommendations for future research and implementation, including the
following:
1) A research agenda needs to be developed that shows whether reductions in
proxy measures of violence (e.g., physical aggression) reliably translate into
reductions in actual violence;
2) A joint conference for the Departments of Health and Human Services, Justice,
Labor, and Education for investigators to achieve a consensus regarding a
taxonomy for violent behavior and a minimal common data set to make standardized
data possible;
3) A federal registry of adolescent violence similar to the National Cancer
Institute's cancer registry;
4) Additional support for research directed at changing neighborhoods to enhance
their role in protecting young people;
5) More long-term cohort studies that measure a rich set of risk factors in
diverse settings and that are analyzed using state-of-the-art qualitative and
statistical methods to untangle the co-occurrences of risk factors;
6) Systematic procedures for adapting established intervention protocols for
diverse communities;
7) More research targeting women, given the growing percentage of women in
violence;
8) More dissemination research so that programs that works can be implemented
more effectively in community settings; and
9) A greater diversity among investigators involved in violence research to
increase the quality of the research.
More information
about the conference
Read
the conference panel's report [PDF 80K]
Back
to SPIN October 2004
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