The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #48978

Jessica Gould, MA, Chris Manning, CHES, Diana Silver, MPH, and Beth Weitzman, PhD. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, Center for Health and Public Service Research, 726 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10003

How do city leaders define youth violence? While public health officials and the media have focused considerable attention on youth violence, a shared understanding of this phenomenon remains elusive. Many have argued for broad and comprehensive solutions, requiring the participation and coordination of disparate public and private agencies. But a coordinated approach to youth violence may be hard to obtain, since youth violence can be defined in many different ways, including gang-related homicides, child abuse in homes and bullying in schools. The appropriateness of community wide strategies will differ depending on the problem definition.

In this paper, we examine how 110 civic leaders in 10 economically distressed American cities conceptualize the problem of youth violence, and explore current efforts to ameliorate the problem in these cities. As part of the evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Urban Health Initiative (UHI), the authors conducted 45 minute, semi-structured telephone interviews with philanthropic leaders, school superintendents, police commissioners, directors of non-profit agencies, senior staff in mayoral offices, and health commissioner during 2001-2. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed using NUDIST software. In this paper, we assess the degree to which leaders in each of the cities share a common definition of the problem, as well as explore possible differences in definition between leaders both within and outside government. We also consider the degree to which current approaches to addressing youth violence match the problem definition. Finally, we explore the ways in which participation in UHI (5 cities) may have influenced these findings.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the degree to which city leadership in 10 US cities share a common vision of youth violence
• Determine the degree to which problem definitions differ between government and non-government leaders across 10 US cities
• Asess the degree to which current approaches to youth violence in 10 US cities match their respective problem definitions
• Discuss the ways in which participation in a foundation driven approach to collaboration may have influenced the development of a common vision

Keywords: Collaboration, Youth Violence

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.