The goal of the proposed research is to improve our understanding of risk and protective factors for self-directed violence, weapon carrying, and interpersonal violence in order to better design and target prevention strategies. Analyses will focus on urban American Indian youths who are characterized by a disproportionately high risk of firearm injury, suicidal involvement, and participation in interpersonal violence. American Indian young people in urban settings are among the highest risk for suicide in the US with overall attempt rates as high as 1 in 5 who have attempted before age 18. It is the second leading cause of death for this population. Homicide is the first. The research will utilize secondary data from a study, funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research, that examined the impact of a youth development program on the health and well being of urban American Indians. Between 1995 and 1998, 635 American Indian youths, ages 9-18, were assessed using the Urban Indian Health Survey, a confidential, self-report survey examining an array of health compromising behaviors and protective factors, along with social, contextual, and demographic information. The two part survey was administered to youth who were participants in an American Indian youth-development program in Minneapolis and to Indian youth attending predominantly American Indian public schools, also in Minneapolis, which is home to the second largest populations of urban American Indians in the US. Grounded in a resiliency paradigm, the aims of this study are to: 1) identify within this high risk group of young people, the contribution of individual, family, and school/community related risk factors to suicidal behavior and interpersonal violence (including weapon carrying; 2) identify protective factors against self-injurious and interpersonal violence among these high risk adolescents; 3) develop generalized models of factors that contribute to and protect against both intrapersonal and interpersonal violence, identifying those factors most amenable to intervention with adolescents. This particularly includes an examination of the potential mediating influence of alcohol and drug use; and 4) develop probability profiles of factors associated with increased or decreased suicidal and interpersonal violence involvement in this population of 9-18 year olds in order to determine priorities for suicide and violence prevention in programmatic settings. We hypothesized that the relative contribution of individual risk factors to adolescent violence involvement may vary by age and gender, but the way these risk factors interact will be similar across the groups. We expect that the more risk factors to which a young person is exposed, the greater the risk for violent outcomes. We also hypothesized that universal protective factors will emerge that cross-cut this high risk group by age, gender, and violent outcomes. Overall, this research will develop an information base for developing violence prevention strategies designed to reduce risk and promote the presence of protective factors in the lives of those youths most vulnerable to violent outcomes.
