Evaluation of a community-based youth violence prevention project

To investigate the association of exposure to a community-based youth violence prevention project with adolescents' knowledge and attitudes about violence.

Two samples of 400 teens each from Boston neighborhoods were surveyed by random-digit dialed telephone techniques: one at the start of the project and one after 1 year of implementation. Regression analyses were used to investigate associations between exposure to different educational formats and outcome measures.

Only self-reported exposure to the mass media campaign was significantly associated with higher scores in both knowledge and attitudes. An independent interaction between gender and exposure to the mass media campaign was found among males. Analyses using a historic control group support a program effect and not recall bias. Exposure to workshops or one-on-one discussions about violence prevention were not significantly associated with outcome scores.

The measurable effect of the mass media may be somewhat related to the strength of that stimulus over the study period and suggests that 12 months is too short a time frame for evaluating community-based educational efforts.