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]

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