The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #71001

Norman L. Kerr¹, Elena D. Quintana, PhD², Cody D. Stephens, MA³, Tio Hardiman³, and Gary Slutkin, MD³. (1) University of Illinios at Chicago, School of Public Health, Chicago Project for Violence Prevention/CeaseFire, 1603 W. Taylor, Chicago, IL 60612, 312 996-1150, nlkerr@uic.edu, (2) University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health, Chicago Project for Violence Prevention, 2121 West Taylor (M/C 922), Chicago, IL 60612, (3) University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health, Chicago Project for Violence Prevention/CeaseFire, 1603 W. Taylor, Chicago, IL 60612

In 1995 the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention implemented a public health strategy to increase neighborhood safety. The goals of this multi-pronged anti-violence intervention include decreasing shootings and killings, changing norms of violence in high crime neighborhoods, and creating positive opportunities for youth. Implementation of the plan depends upon collaboration and support of citizens, government (local, state, and federal), law enforcement, clergy, and business. The full implementation of this plan is called “CeaseFire”.

CeaseFire centers around five main interventions: 1) public education to change neighborhood norms 2) outreach to high risk youth 3) clergy outreach, safe havens, and gang mediation 4) community responses to all shootings to show resistance to violence 5) law enforcement commitment to respond quickly to violence.

In February of 2000 community coalition members began responding to all shootings and killings within the first CeaseFire Zone. From 2000 to 2001, over 200 community responses were held in the Chicago Project neighborhoods. Currently there are 30 youth outreach workers working in 5 Chicago neighborhoods, 36 clergy working closely with the project, and over 650,000 public education materials distributed from 2000 to the present. In the first CeaseFire Zone there was a 67% decrease in shooting in the first year of implementation (from 43 shootings in 2000 to 14 in 2001); this reduction was maintained through 2002. Since this time, four additional CeaseFire neighborhoods have implemented this program and have shown shooting reductions between 25% and 72% from the start of CeaseFire to the present.

Learning Objectives:

• To understand how a public health strategy can be implemented to reduce violence.
• To examine the essential components of a successful anti-violence campaign.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: employed by organization