Ecological Mediators and Moderators in Norm-Change Models of Violence Prevention: Comparative Case Studies of Philadelphia and Chester CeaseFire

Objective:
Evaluations of community-based violence intervention and prevention (CVIPI) programs almost exclusively examine violence as an outcome of the correlational relationship between an intervention (independent predictor variable) and incidents of violence (dependent variable). As the former increases (in dosage, or moves, dichotomously, from absence (0) to presence (1)), the latter is expected to decrease. Presumably, exogenous factors are simply controlled for, statistically isolated, and considered separable from the main relationship. We propose a set of baseline studies to quantify factors within a program’s social ecology expected to influence the basic predictor-outcome relationship. We expect community norms towards violence, operational stability of a program, and the political and ideological context in which it operates to moderate this relationship. 

Funded By:
New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center (GVRC)

Project Status:
In progress

Principal Investigator (PI):
Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill, JD, PhD

Co-Investigator:
Michelle Lyttle Storrod, PhD 

Amount Awarded:
$69,702.00