Youth violence is a major public health concern, with homicide the leading cause of death among African American adolescents. Exposure to violence is a social determinant contributing to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic health disparities. Employing a socio-ecologic approach, this proposal seeks to develop an academic-community partnership between The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and WURD, the only African American talk radio station in Pennsylvania, to identify and address community research priorities regarding racial disparities in youth violence.
Specific Aim 1 : Develop strong partnerships between local community organizations and CHOP that inform a common research agenda to address disparities related to violence in Philadelphia.
Aim 1 a: Form and convene an Advisory Board of relevant stakeholders that will sustain through the partnership and beyond, with the purpose of identifying appropriate research opportunities and methods of research conduct.
Aim 1 b: Create a MOU between CHOP researchers and at least one community organization that defines roles and responsibilities in carrying out a CBPR project related to violence prevention, identifies the project teams, and positions the partnered researchers to apply for and obtain federal funding.
Specific Aim 2 : Establish, through open community dialogue, a research agenda for violence prevention that is salient and relevant to community stakeholders.
Aim 2 a: Convene, through partnership with WURD forums and workgroup meetings that includes the voices of community adults and youth, with the purpose of establishing a violence prevention research agenda of importance to community members and community-based organizations.
Aim 2 b: Leverage and enhance existing CBPR forums and pilot funds to further catalyze collaborations between community organizations and academicians related to violence prevention.
Specific Aim 3 : Promote bidirectional education of academic and community-based researchers regarding the optimal processes for performing and disseminating results of community-based participatory research in violence prevention.
Aim 3 a: Utilize and enhance existing educational venues to create a sustainable CBPR training program for faculty at CHOP.
Aim 3 b: Create a sustainable process to disseminate violence prevention resources and educational materials that are relevant and easily digested by youth and adults in the community. This proposal offers the opportunity to create sustainable and meaningful academic-community partnerships to promote CBPR in violence prevention. This application's activities will build and embed mechanisms that combine local expertise and insight with research capabilities, benefitting all participants through information sharing and capacity building. This program can serve as a model for partnered research in other priority areas, leveraging and enhancing existing activities and relationships between CHOP and community agencies.
This proposal offers the opportunity to create sustainable, meaningful academic-community partnerships that promote community-based participatory research in violence prevention by building and embedding mechanisms that combine local expertise and insights with research capabilities and infrastructure, mutually benefitting all participants through information sharing and capacity building. The studies emanating from this CBPR infrastructure have the potential to address NICHD Pediatric Trauma and Critical Illness Branch to perform 'research on prevention, treatment, management, and outcomes of physical and psychological trauma...,' and 'studies of the continuum of psychosocial, behavioral, biological, and physiological influences that affect child health outcomes in trauma, injury, and acute care.' In addition, this research will also address Healthy People 2020 objectives IVP 29-35 related to reducing firearm and non-firearm injuries or deaths, physical assaults and bullying among adolescents as well as the goal to increase the quality, availability, and effectiveness of educational and community- based programs designed to prevent disease and injury, improve health, and enhance quality of life.
