Online Program

288029
Attitude and behavior change measurement: Development of a measure to assess positive attitudinal and behavior change among cure violence clients


Monday, November 4, 2013 : 12:50 p.m. - 1:10 p.m.

Dan Cantillon, PhD, School of Public Health, Cure Violence, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
Elise Wisnieski, MA, School of Public Health, Cure Violence, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
Tina Johnson, MA, School of Public Health, Cure Violence, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
Marilyn Pitchford, MA, CeaseFire West, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
Gary Slutkin, MD, University of Illlinois at Chicago School of Public Health, Cure Violence, Chicago, IL
Cure Violence (CV), formerly CeaseFire Chicago, has been helping to reduce the endemic levels of violence across some of Chicago's most violent communities since 2000. CV attempts to interrupt the transmission of violence, provide peaceful alternatives via conflict mediation, and ultimately reduce shootings and homicides. By working intensely on individual behavior change with program participants, while also attending to peer, group/gang, family, and community norms and conflicts, CV has proven to be an effective, multi-level, theory-driven intervention (Skogan, Hartnett, Bump, & Dubois, 2008). While anecdotal programmatic evidence suggests that CV staff facilitate positive change in participants, CV has yet to quantify and monitor individual behavior, attitudinal, and norm change. In an attempt to fill this programmatic and evaluation gap, we have developed an instrument for use by Outreach Workers (OWs) to assess changes in participant behaviors, attitudes, norms, and general mindset regarding violence over time. This presentation will first describe the implementation and preliminary results of this new and innovative tool. We will discuss the contexts and capacities related to successful (or unsuccessful) behavior change in participants, including barriers and facilitators to change, stimulus control, and self-efficacy. We will then demonstrate how this instrument provides an opportunity for OWs to evaluate their own progress with moving participants towards a productive and positive lifestyle. This presentation has noteworthy implications for both the implementation and evaluation of public health interventions across a range of high-risk behaviors.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Describe development and purpose of the behavior change tool. Discuss implementation of behavior change tool across CV sites. List key constructs measured by tool. Explain application of behavior change tool in informing programmatic practice and guiding outreach efforts.

Keyword(s): Youth Violence, Evaluation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Dr. Cantillon has over a decade of experience evaluating community intervention and capacity building initiatives. As Director of Research and Evaluation for Cure Violence, he oversees all evaluation activities and analyses. With team members, Dr. Cantillon developed the behavior change measure to reflect work done in related fields, yet also be specific to meet needs of CV staff and clients. He is responsible for conducting all analyses related to the development of this measure.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.