With over a thousand people killed by police each year and with approximately 2.2 million people incarcerated, mass incarceration and policing are both harmful to the public’s health in the U.S. Given that these systems disproportionately impact Black and brown people, low-income people, those living with mental illness, and other historically marginalized populations, they are a particular threat to health equity. Public health has a role in advocacy around the harms of the criminal legal system. With the passage of the policy statement on law enforcement violence at last year’s American Public Health Association conference, public health researchers, teachers, graduate students, non-profit leaders, and community organizers came together to recognize the ways that structural racism shape population patterns of law enforcement violence and to advocate for upstream, community-based, and community-led alternatives to policing. Rooted in the work of grassroots organizing around state-mediated violence, the statement provides a tool for this work to continue under a public health framework. Another example of public health advocacy around the criminal legal system is the Deeper Than Water coalition from Boston, MA, a coalition of local and national grassroots organizations, formerly and currently incarcerated people, and their loved ones. The coalition came together to address the problem of toxic water in Massachusetts state prisons, while recognizing that the harms of incarceration run “deeper than water.” Since then, the coalition has taken on overheating in the prisons during the summer, compassionate release for the terminally ill, and medical neglect within prisons. With the goals of ending the harms of the criminal legal system and advancing health equity, this presentation will discuss both of these examples of public health advocacy and encourage attendees to utilize the tools that have been borne of these efforts in their own work.

Introduction to Issue: This presentation identifies reliable and validated scales that exist within the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey (HKCS) and the Youth Violence Prevention Center-Denver (YVPC-D) community survey that measure levels of risk and protection in schools and communities throughout Colorado. These risk and protective scales measure aspects of the socioecological model of health behaviors, helping to understand the community, neighborhood, school, family, and individual issues that may influence young people’s decisions and behaviors.

Description of Evidence Informing Implementation: These factors are utilized by 49 Colorado communities currently implementing Communities That Care (CTC). CTC is an evidence-based process that engages and mobilizes local communities to make data-driven decisions to address critical health issues in the community. CTC communities focus on primary prevention by creating policy, systems, and environmental changes and integrating evidence-based programs locally. These efforts aim to improve protective factors and reduce risk factors and adverse health outcomes in Colorado youth.

Description of Outcomes: We will provide correlational analyses on how these risk and protective factors are linked to violence, substance use, and mental health concerns use among youth in Colorado, emphasizing how varying health outcomes often share similar levels of risk and protection. We will also examine how levels of risk and protection vary among racial/ethnic groups, gender and sexuality, and where youth live.

Conclusions: These analyses demonstrate the importance of shared prevention efforts across health issues, disciplines, and sectors to reduce risk and promote levels of protection for youth in Colorado. Findings also reveal how risk and protection vary among different populations in Colorado, helping to inform specific interventions that communities can adopt to reduce health inequities.

Recommendations for Practice: To model how these findings can be utilized to mobilize communities to advocate for health equity, we will share how Colorado communities implementing the CTC prevention system are utilizing these risk and protective factor data to inform community-based decision-making. As communities prioritize their focus on these risk and protective factors, they then select community-level strategies to change systems, policies, and environments to reduce risk, substance use, and violence, and to promote protection, mental health, and health equity.

Background: Firearm violence continues to be a national public health issue. County Commissioners represent their county’s constituents and make policies that influence public health. Objective: The objective of this study was to collect baseline data regarding North Carolina County Commissioners’ perceptions of firearm violence prevention policies as a method to reducing community level firearm violence. Methods: A cross sectional study of North Carolina County Commissioners (n=582) was conducted to investigate the research questions. A response rate of 30.8% was sufficient based on a power analysis. Utilizing a 3 wave mailing process, North Carolina County Commissioners were invited to participate in the study. Results: North Carolina County Commissioners perceived poor parenting practices (64.7%), substance abuse (64.7%) and lack of sufficient adult mentors for youth (46.6%) as major causes of community level firearm violence. The top 5 firearm violence prevention interventions that would be supported by North Carolina County Commissioners included offering gun safety classes for adults (88.4%), implementing public education campaigns to promote responsible firearm storage (86.0%), developing courtroom processes that ensure domestic abusers turn in their guns as required by law (83.7%), adopting a standard policy of tracing all crime guns (79.3%), and providing firearm violence prevention programs for at risk neighborhoods and individuals (72.7%). North Carolina County Commissioners perceived lack of understanding regarding which interventions would be most effective as the major barrier to supporting various types of firearm violence prevention interventions. Conclusions: North Carolina County Commissioners seem to have limited knowledge of effective local level firearm violence interventions. Educating North Carolina County Commissioners on the benefits of effective firearm violence prevention interventions including local policies and legislation is one approach to increasing their likelihood to advocate for such interventions. Public Health Implications: Public health policy has been used to address many public health issues. When applying the public health approach to reducing community level firearm violence it is vastly important to understand current perceptions of the public health issue from elected officials and policy makers who can influence and advocate for policies and laws to prevent injuries and deaths related to community level firearm violence.

Introduction: Youth violence, in the form of fighting, bullying, and threats is common with approximately 20% of students (aged 12-18), who reported being bullied on school property in the last year. Youth who are most likely to experience violence, also experience chronic stress due to racism and living in impoverished neighborhoods. Previous work has shown that social-emotional learning approaches that provide youth with healthy social and problem-solving skills, such as enhancing empathy, problem solving, and conflict management, can reduce the risk of violent behaviors. Previous studies also indicate that programs are most effective when they focus on elementary and middle school youth, and engage teachers and staff to help build thse skills. This abstract presents findings from a feasibility study assessing the use of forum theater as a social-emotional learning approach to reducing youth violence.

Theory/program activities: Say Something, Do Something (SSDS), is an innovative drama-based violence prevention program for youth (4^th-6^th grades) that applies Freire’s empowerment theory to theater. Through SSDS youth learned how to read body language and develop empathy, and developed problem-solving and conflict resolution skills. Teachers and school staff were engaged throughout the development of the production and and given resources to extend the conversations with students after the production.

Evaluation: SSDS was conducted for 2539 students in 23 public schools in St. Louis MO. A qualitative evaluation included open-ended online surveys, qualitative interviews and participant observations. Qualitative data indicated that as a result of the production youth developed and used non-violent problem solving skills and conflict management skills. Data also highlighted the importance of ensuring that all schools provide teachers with enhanced skills and procedures for managing conflicts when they arise. Process evaluation highlighted the need for additional engagement and resources.

Conclusion/Recommendation for practice: Findings from this study show that innovative drama based approaches can enhance skill development and should be considered a potential approach for school based violence-prevention programs. This study also showed that minimal exposure to these types of programs can serve as an entry point and build support for longer term youth violence prevention efforts.