CE25-021 - Estimating the impact of alternative crisis response models on community violence

About This Grant

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Community violence (CV) is a pressing public health crisis in the United States (US), disproportionately affecting youth and young adults (YYA) ages 10-34. Racial and ethnic minority YYA experience a hugely disproportionate burden of CV, with non-Hispanic Black YYA nearly 10 times more likely to die from homicide compared to their non-Hispanic white peers. Despite recognition of violence as a public health issue, many jurisdictions rely on law enforcement to respond to crises and conflicts among individuals and between community members. Yet the use of law enforcement can escalate conflicts between community members (particularly between YYA) that could otherwise remain nonviolent, introduce risks of violence and arrest to YYA, and contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in enforcement. To prevent CV while mitigating these risks, some US cities have adopted non- enforcement community-centered safety models (CCSMs) to use community responders to de-escalate crises and conflicts before violence occurs and address underlying behavioral and social drivers of CV. CCSMs— including co-response models, which send trained community responders to calls for service alongside police; alternative response models, which send trained community responders to calls for service without police; and community violence interventions, though which trained community members proactively intervene in conflicts before escalation to violence—represent promising approaches to prevent CV among YYA. However, limited evidence exists on the effectiveness of CCSMs to prevent CV among YYA, the factors influencing the success or failure of CCSMs, and how CCSM modalities impact CV across diverse communities. This study will fill that gap. Aim 1 will use an implementation science approach to characterize CCSM operations in 15 US jurisdictions, documenting program characteristics, funding mechanisms, and scope to facilitate impact evaluation. Aim 2 will use an augmented synthetic control approach to estimate the overall and modality-specific impacts of CCSMs on a range of CV outcomes among YYA. Aim 3 will use feature importance analysis with Bayesian additive regression trees to explore which CCSM operational factors drive strong or weak estimates of CCSM effectiveness. This innovative research is directly responsive to the CDC’s Violence Prevention Research Priority to evaluate the effectiveness of community-level change strategies to reduce multiple forms of violence. This research is directly responsive to Research Objective 1 of the current NOFO through its focus on the evaluation of an innovative but understudied intervention to prevent CV with the potential for immediate benefit after implementation. In sum, by generating critical evidence about CCSMs, this project has the potential to reduce CV among YYA, inform policymakers as they design and deploy CCSMs in local jurisdictions, and promote health equity through innovative, evidence-based prevention strategies. The multidisciplinary investigator team will work with a Community Advisory Board to maximize the impact and reach of the research.