Youth Violence and Housing Programs to Deconcentrate Poverty

描述（由申请人提供）：问题的陈述：青少年暴力犯罪和受害率在各个社区之间差异很大，导致了美国境内种族和社会阶层之间的健康差异。拟议项目的目的：该项目旨在评估芝加哥市旨在消除贫困和暴力地区的随机住房政策干预对青年暴力犯罪和受害的影响。使用随机分配到干预等待名单以及管理数据，使我们能够进行一个令人难以置信的成本效益评估，这与任何随机实验一样严格-但成本只有一小部分。方法和研究人群：1997年，芝加哥12年来首次重新开放住房券计划的等待名单。共有82，607个符合条件的家庭申请，远远超过了可用的代金券数量，因此申请人通过随机抽签被分配到等待名单中。我们在这里关注的是基线时居住在公共住房中的10%的家庭。下面我们提供的初步结果表明，对于这些家庭，代金券在社区环境中产生了相当大的变化。另一方面，候补名单的位置是无关的基线社会人口特征-也就是说，随机券抽奖确实是随机的。我们衡量青少年参与暴力犯罪相匹配的行政逮捕记录从伊利诺伊州警察局（ISP），并衡量青少年暴力受害的死亡率数据从国家死亡指数（NDI）。住房券对青年暴力结果的因果影响主要是通过比较其家庭被随机分配到“好”和“坏”等待名单位置的青年的结果来确定的。关于影响如何按基线特征在青年中变化的证据可以提供关于社区一级风险和保护因素如何与青年一级风险和保护因素（如年龄、性别和家庭结构）以及发展因素（如先前的犯罪轨迹）相互作用的信息。有关机制的信息将来自分析券对个人和社区层面的候选人调解因素的影响。最后，结果将进行比较，为青年的家庭，使不同类型的移动与他们的住房券，以检查是否邻里对青年暴力的影响是线性或非线性的具体邻里属性。对预防的影响：我们项目的调查结果应该与大量的住房政策决定有关，这些决定有可能影响美国青年暴力的集中程度和总量。我们的研究还可以直接帮助设计新的面向社区的健康干预措施，针对影响青年暴力的社会环境中的具体因素。该项目旨在评估芝加哥市旨在消除贫困和暴力地区的随机住房政策干预措施对青年暴力犯罪和受害的影响。使用随机分配到干预等待名单与行政数据一起使我们能够对干预进行令人难以置信的成本效益评估，帮助年轻人搬到不那么不利的，危险的社区，这与任何随机实验一样严格-但成本只是一小部分。从这项研究的结果应该是相关的一个庞大的一套住房政策的决定，有可能塑造的浓度和总量的青年暴力在美国，也可能直接帮助设计新的面向社区的健康干预措施，针对具体的因素在社会环境中的影响青年暴力。

Description (Provided by Applicant): Statement of the Problem: Rates of youth violence perpetration and victimization vary dramatically across neighborhoods, contributing to health disparities within the U.S. across race and social class lines. Purpose of the Proposed Project: This project seeks to evaluate the effects on youth violence perpetration and victimization of a randomized housing policy intervention in the city of Chicago designed to de- concentrate areas of poverty and violence. The use of random assignment to the intervention wait list together with administrative data enables us to carry out an incredibly cost-effective evaluation that is as rigorous as any randomized experiment - but at just a small fraction of the cost. Methods and Study Population: In 1997, Chicago re-opened the housing voucher program's wait list for the first time in 12 years. A total of 82,607 eligible families applied, far in excess of the number of available vouchers, and so applicants were assigned by random lottery to a wait list. We focus here on the 10 percent of families living in public housing at baseline. Below we provide preliminary results showing that for these families, vouchers generate sizable changes in community environments. On the other hand wait-list position is unrelated to baseline socio-demographic characteristics - that is, the random voucher lottery was indeed random. We measure youth involvement in violence perpetration by matching to administrative arrest records from the Illinois State Police (ISP), and measure youth violence victimization using mortality data from the National Death Index (NDI). The causal effects of housing vouchers on youth violence outcomes are identified by essentially comparing outcomes for youth whose families are randomly assigned to "good" versus "bad" wait-list positions. Evidence on how effects vary across youth by baseline characteristics can provide information about how community-level risk and protective factors interact with youth-level risk and protective factors such as age, gender, and family structure, as well as developmental factors such as prior offending trajectory. Information about mechanisms will come from analyzing voucher impacts on individual- and community-level candidate mediating factors. Finally, outcomes will be compared for youth whose families make different types of moves with their housing vouchers to examine whether neighborhood effects on youth violence are linear or non-linear with respect to specific neighborhood attributes. Implications for Prevention: The findings from our project should be relevant to a vast set of housing policy decisions that have the potential to shape the concentration and overall volume of youth violence in America. Our study may also directly aid in the design of new community-oriented health interventions targeted at the specific factors within the social environment that influence youth violence. This project seeks to evaluate the effects on youth violence perpetration and victimization of a randomized housing policy intervention in the city of Chicago designed to de-concentrate areas of poverty and violence. The use of random assignment to the intervention wait list together with administrative data enables us to carry out an incredibly cost-effective evaluation of an intervention that helps youth move to less disadvantaged, dangerous neighborhoods that is as rigorous as any randomized experiment - but at just a small fraction of the cost. Findings from this study should be relevant to a vast set of housing policy decisions that have the potential to shape the concentration and overall volume of youth violence in America, and may also directly aid in the design of new community-oriented health interventions targeted at the specific factors within the social environment that influence youth violence.