The Evidence for Violence Prevention Across the Lifespan and Around the World Workshop Summary (2014) / Chapter Skim
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3 Generating and Integrating Evidence
3 Generating and Integrating Evidence
Pages 17-34
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From page 17... ...
Barriers to evidence collection Individual speakers discussed several barriers that complicate efforts to collect and generate evidence for violence prevention: • the complexity of violence, • the need for political and societal support, • the difficulty of coordination among sectors, • limited resources and the diversion of resources from directly re sponding to violence, • various research methods, and • restricted support for funding and publishing. The Complexity of Violence Throughout the workshop, speakers noted that collecting evidence on which to build violence prevention interventions is a challenging endeavor.
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Workshop speaker Lisbeth Schorr from the Center for the Study of Social Policy suggested that violence prevention solutions require (1) reforms of institutions, policies, and systems that are adapted to a variety of contextual issues; (2)
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A workshop participant cautioned that as public health violence prevention approaches are designed, it is critical to include other relevant sectors, such as the human rights and criminal justice communities. A comprehensive approach is no easy task, however, and Santos Pais noted the challenges in bringing sectors together to address; for example, unemployment and poverty and their effects on families.
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Schorr noted that the best funded prevention programs are those that are backed by significant evidence and carry the lowest risk of failure, and the most frequently published studies are those that employ what is viewed as proven methodologies. Webster added that grants often require applicants to demonstrate that they are applying evidence-based interventions to address a problem, but he questioned the value of broadly applying the criteria because effectiveness will vary, depending on the place and time of an intervention.
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They cautioned against becoming distracted with measuring program effects that ultimately do not clarify whether the program is meeting its final goals. For example, Forum member Michael Phillips from Shanghai Jiao Tong School of Medicine mentioned that many suicide prevention programs promote their effectiveness in reducing depression or suicide ideation, but it is still not clear whether they actually reduce suicidal behavior.
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Santos Pais described the recent study conducted in Tanzania that involved multiple partners in an effort to uncover the prevalence of physical, emotional, and sexual violence in youth populations (United Republic of Tanzania, 2011)
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Santos Pais noted that surveys on violence in youth populations can be more comprehensive when completed directly by youth themselves. Several speakers highlighted the importance of qualitative data collection methods for illuminating often otherwise unheard perspectives.
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When evaluating school-based interventions such as social and emotional learning programs, for example, one should look beyond measuring educational outcomes. Educational outcomes alone might show that it takes a long time to offset program costs, but assessment of the program benefits to criminal justice, health, and social sectors may reveal that the costs are actually offset much more quickly when a larger range of outcomes is considered.
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Integrating Evidence Efforts are ongoing to make existing evidence for violence prevention easily and quickly accessible. Several speakers presented on the development of these efforts, which assist practitioners and policy makers who need timely advice on successful interventions for responding to violence.
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Global Implementation Conference http://globalimplementation.org/gic National Suicide Prevention Resource http://www.sprc.org/bpr Center best practices registry Secretary general's database on violence http://sgdatabase.unwomen.org/home.action against women U.S. Preventative Services Task Force http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org Virtual Knowledge Centre to End Violence http://www.endvawnow.org Against Women and Girls Examples of Promising Evidence Integration Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development As described by Tolan, Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development (Blueprints)
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The no effects category includes programs that have either null or negative effects, and it specifically identifies programs that have been proven to cause harm. Each program profile includes a program description, the measured outcomes, study methodology used in the evaluation, cost information, implementation information, and additional references.
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Different lists have different standards of what is meant by "evidence base," and as evidence becomes more important for program development, it will be helpful to have a shared understanding of what constitutes adequate evidence. Looking Beyond Program Data Several speakers stressed the importance of integrating evidence beyond program evaluations to determine what works in violence prevention.
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Collective Impact of Interventions In addition to facilitating more innovation and exploration, many speakers agreed that looking beyond program data will illuminate not only the programs that work, but also how and why they work. Schorr and Brian Bumbarger from The Pennsylvania State University both encouraged the violence prevention community to focus their research efforts on
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Identifying Successful Intervention Components A theme acknowledged by several workshop speakers was the need to go beyond determining which strategies work to understanding the underlying components that make them work. One method of uncovering successful elements of programs is the use of systematic reviews of the current research body.
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Lipsey noted that meta-analysis is one type of systematic review method that combines the results of individual quantitative studies by standardizing effect sizes. It involves the use of statistics to find a common metric that can be used to compare studies that use differing units to measure the same outcome.
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Bumbarger highlighted the program model Communities That Care, which collects local epidemiological data on risk and protective factors that predispose children to multiple poor outcomes. Bellis explained that once risk factors are identified, programs can be designed to target risk factors and could affect a wider range of outcomes than if the program were designed only with a single outcome in mind.
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As Schorr claimed, "We need a broader knowledge base, not a narrower one that considers experimental evidence as the sole proof of effectiveness." Workshop planning committee co-chair and Forum member James Mercy from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted the knowledge among workshop participants that can be derived not from the results of their study findings, but from their experience in implementing, practicing, and researching violence prevention interventions. In addition to learning from the scientific evidence presented at the workshop, he encouraged workshop participants to also learn from the experiences of other participants and audience members.
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2013. Creating lists of "evidence based" programs: Utilizing set standards for what works in violence prevention.
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