Cure Violence: How the Intervention Works to Reduce Individual and Community Levels of Violence

Cure Violence, formerly CeaseFire Chicago, has been helping to reduce disproportionate levels of violence in Chicago neighborhoods since 2000. Currently, the program is also in five other countries (England, South Africa) and six other U.S. States. CV evaluations have mainly focused on establishing efficacy and results have been supportive of the intervention in reducing violence, specifically shootings and killings.

Given these positive findings, recent research has been conducted to explore how the intervention works to reduce levels of community violence. The current presentation will focus on CV sites in Chicago and Kansas City, Missouri. The presentation will examine both individual and community-level factors, which may influence health and well-being. Both presentations will also explore the importance of addressing determinants of health in efforts to reduce and prevent violence.

Data from the Chicago sites will focus on how to measure attitude and behavior change at the individual participant level to assess violence and other high-risk activities. This measure will allow Cure Violence to better understand how and why people change their lifestyles and behavior, and if behavior change processes and stages mirror other high-risk behaviors such as substance abuse. Based on evaluation findings indicating that CV staff were the second most important people in participants lives (Skogan, Hartnett, Bump, & Dubois, 2008), the Kansas City replication initiative, Aim4Peace-- a program of the Kansas City, MO Health Department, will use participant survey data to highlight program participants’ experiences with program staff, and how the program has helped them turn their lives around.