UNITY: Results of an assessment of current practices in a selected sample of UNITY cities

Purpose: In order to inform the development of tools and strategies to address youth violence in the 45 largest cities in the U.S., key informant interviews were conducted with a sample of those cities between December 2006 and March 2007.

Methods: A sample of twelve cities was selected for the study to ensure that the sample was representative of the range in geographic location and rates of fatal youth violence among the 45 cities. Telephone interviews were conducted with the Mayor, Police Chief, Public Health Director, and School Superintendent to collect information on current violence prevention activities in each city. The telephone interview questionnaire contained closed and open-ended questions.

Results: Descriptive results will be presented on city-wide plans, youth advisory councils, youth development and violence prevention programs, violence prevention coalitions, access to relevant data, and overall assessment of the city's efforts.

Conclusion: Findings from this assessment will inform UNITY's efforts to develop a national strategy for urban youth violence prevention and will be shared to assist cities in the development of their own city-wide strategy. In addition, we will be designing a template for cities to use for evaluating their work, based on cities' data collection and mapping capacity, with the intention of initiating a surveillance system for protective factors as well as risk factors of youth violence.