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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Larry Cohen, MSW¹, Rachel Davis, MSW¹, Deborah Prothrow-Stith, MD², and Billie Weiss, MPH³. (1) Prevention Institute, 265 29th St, Oakland, CA 94611, 510-444-7738, Larry@preventioninstitute.org, (2) Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard University, 841 Parker Street, Boston, MA 02120, (3) Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles, 10911 Weyburn Ave, Suite 200, Los Angeles, CA 90024

UNITY (Urban Networks to increase Thriving Youth Through Violence Prevention) is a CDC-funded cooperative agreement awarded in 2005 to a partnership comprised of Prevention Institute, Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith of the Harvard School of Public Health, and Billie Weiss from the University of California at Los Angeles Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center. The goal of UNITY is to strengthen urban youth violence prevention, build national support for necessary resources and policies, and develop tools and framing to ensure long-term sustainability of youth violence prevention efforts. Framing- establishing effective ways to talk about or position an issue- can help strengthen youth violence prevention. Framing can build broader engagement as well as support for prevention policy and sustainable resources. It also helps elected officials, practitioners and the general public better understand what is needed to effectively prevent youth violence.

Youth violence prevention frequently is approached from a criminal justice perspective which emphasizes containment and suppression. While the criminal justice system is an important partner, their primary mandate is after violence has occurred, preventing violence before also has a demonstrated track record of success. This session will feature the lessons learned from framing other successful public health efforts, like tobacco cessation and youth violence prevention, such as The California Wellness Foundation's Violence Prevention Initiative, a ten year 70 million dollar effort. The lessons learned from these efforts, as well as framing social issues in general, will be discussed and the implications for effectively framing youth violence prevention for different audiences will be explored.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will better understand the role of primary prevention activities in addressing youth violence prevention.
• Participants will learn about prevention tools and frameworks that can be used to develop comprehensive youth violence prevention strategies.
• Participants will be able to describe some of the lessons learned from successful prevention efforts in public health.

Keywords: Primary Prevention, Violence Prevention

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No