Discrimination, Racism, and Structural Determinants in Youth Violence Prevention Programs: A Scoping Review and...

This scoping review maps youth violence prevention studies (1990-2025) that explicitly incorporate discrimination, racism, or structural terms in titles/abstracts, categorizes violence outcomes, and analyzes interventions with components specifically designed to address these factors. From 1034 unique records across a multi-disciplinary group of eight databases, a very small fraction of eligible studies that explicitly centered and named discrimination-related concepts was identified (n = 14). Among these, the use of "discrimination" and "structural" terminology was most salient. Violence outcomes were inconsistently operationalized but most included subjective measures of youth problem behavior or aggression; objective outcome measures related to formalized offenses were moderately used. Five studies featured programs targeting discrimination, racism, or structural determinants and qualified for intervention component analysis (ICA). Most of the studies leveraged multicomponent interventions, but reporting on change mechanisms varied widely. This review highlights a gap between rhetoric around the role of discrimination and structural factors in youth violence and how interventions are designed, indexed, and evaluated. Our ICA findings suggest practical models for embedding discrimination or structural components in prevention programs. Rather than identifying all programs impacting these factors, this review maps those explicitly focused on them. Findings urge funders, journals, and leaders to prioritize evaluations which clearly articulate how prevention interventions address upstream drivers of youth violence.