Youth violence is widespread, including threats with firearms and physical assaults, but adolescents living in disinvested urban neighborhoods ? many of whom are underserved and racial minorities ? experience an elevated burden. While youth violence is a longstanding problem, social media dominates the social lives of modern youth, and threats are now being expressed via social media in a phenomenon referred to as ?cyberbanging.? While data suggests that cyberbanging is implicated in multiple forms of youth violence, including firearm-related violence, little is known about leverage points that might reduce it. Street outreach programs are identified by the CDC as an evidence-based approach to violence prevention. However, these programs were developed before social media became ubiquitous and do not address cyberbanging or use social media to enhance delivery. Growing evidence highlights the promise of technology to address urban adolescent mental health, but these insights have not been translated into youth violence prevention. Dr. Caitlin Elsaesser is one of a small handful of researchers in the U.S. working to identify how youth violence is shaped by social media, as well as youth behaviors that prevent cyberbanging. She previously developed and is currently testing a 9-item measure of cyberbanging, at this time the only such measure known. With this K01 award, and in collaboration with COMPASS Youth Collaborative, Dr. Elsaesser will gather formative data to develop a social media-based intervention to reduce cyberbanging implicated in youth violence by: (1) Conducting focus groups with low-income urban adolescents and violence street outreach staff to explore social media behaviors, strategies to avoid cyberbanging and preferences for social media-based interventions; 2) Leveraging an ongoing study to conduct survey data to describe social media habits, barriers/facilitators to cyberbanging and intervention preferences of this specific population and examine the association between protective factors and three parallel youth violence outcomes (including firearm-related violence); and 3) Using intervention mapping to draft messages and strategies for a future social media intervention to address social media threats implicated in violence and then conducting confirmatory focus groups with key stakeholders to gather feedback. This K01 award will provide Dr. Elsaesser with the training and experience required to become an independent researcher specializing in technology-enhanced youth violence prevention through training in 1) mixed methods, 2) intervention development, 3) social media-based interventions and 4) leadership. The K01 award will lead to an R21 or R34 application to develop and test a technology-enhanced street outreach intervention to reduce cyberbanging and violence among low-income urban youth ? thereby addressing the CDC's priority to evaluate the effectiveness of prevention strategies that reduce youth violence and helping to launch Dr. Elsaesser's career as an independent researcher.
Youth violence remains a significant public health problem, and evidence suggests that youth communicate threats on social media that are implicated in offline violence (i.e., cyberbanging). The role of social media in youth violence and the pervasive use of social media by modern youth calls for interventions that integrate new technology in addressing youth violence. The objective of this career development and research plan is to obtain high quality training and conduct advanced research to inform the development of a social media-based intervention that enhances street outreach programs to reduce cyberbanging implicated in youth violence.
