Chicago Public-Private Experimental Partnerships to Reduce Youth Violence

说明(由申请人提供)：本提案请求支持选择、启动和评估随机试点干预措施，以减少青少年暴力。这些干预措施将作为我们芝加哥大学研究团队和芝加哥市政府之间独特合作的一部分进行。重点是实施随机实地试验，改变青年认为的参与亲社会活动和反社会活动的动机，希望通过促进人力资本积累和积极的青年发展来防止青年暴力。该项目有两个主要目标。第一，结合当地资源，开展能够减少青少年暴力的新干预措施；第二，产生有用的知识，帮助预防芝加哥和其他地方的青少年暴力。为了实现这些目标，我们有四个主要目标：1.举办设计竞赛，以确定和选择获得高达150万美元私人资金的城市机构、非营利组织或私营公司，以在芝加哥开展有前途的防止青少年暴力的计划，这些计划将使用随机分配的方式将符合条件的年轻人分配到计划服务。我们的研究团队将与市长理查德·M·戴利的办公室合作，从私人慈善家那里筹集实施这些干预措施所需的资源。2.为选定的项目管理人员提供技术援助，以确定适当的样本量，进行随机化，维护人类受试者保护，并确保我们的研究团队能够访问评估所需的行政记录和其他数据。3.对通过该项目实施的干预措施进行过程评估。4.对干预措施进行短期影响评估，重点是青少年暴力受害和犯罪行为的衡量标准以及毕业等积极结果。在为期两年的项目期结束时，我们希望就预防青少年暴力的特定试点计划的效果产生新的、异常严格的科学证据，并开发所需的基础设施，以便在未来与芝加哥和其他地方的市政府合作开展更多的随机干预。由于干预措施是由现有的社区组织和公共机构设计和实施的，因此拟议的项目具备提供切合实际的管理和政策指导以指导未来干预措施的能力。NIH的资金对我们的研究团队进行这些初步规划和设计以及随后的评估活动至关重要。公共卫生相关性：通过我们位于芝加哥大学的研究团队与芝加哥市政府之间的独特合作，该项目寻求通过实施和评估随机实验干预措施来确定预防青少年暴力的有效方法。将把重点放在通过促进青年积极发展和高危青年积累人力资本来防止青年暴力的干预措施上。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal requests support to select, launch, and evaluate randomized pilot interventions to reduce youth violence. These interventions will be conducted as part of a unique collaboration between our University of Chicago-based research team and city government in Chicago. Emphasis is placed on implementing randomized field experiments that change the incentives youth perceive for involvement with pro- as well as anti-social activities, with the hope of preventing youth violence by promoting human capital accumulation and positive youth development. The project has two major goals. First, to combine local resources to field novel interventions that can reduce youth violence; second, to generate useful knowledge to help prevent youth violence in Chicago and elsewhere. To meet these goals we have four main aims: 1. Conduct a design competition to identify and select city agencies, non-profits, or private firms to receive up to $1.5 million in private funding to carry out promising programs in Chicago to prevent youth violence, which will use random assignment to allocate eligible youth to program services. Our research team will work with the office of Mayor Richard M. Daley to raise the resources necessary to implement these interventions from private philanthropists. 2. Provide technical assistance to the selected program administrators to determine adequate sample sizes, carry out randomization, maintain human subject protections, and secure our research team's access to the administrative records and other data required for the evaluation. 3. Conduct a process evaluation of the interventions implemented through this project. 4. Conduct a short-term impact evaluation of the intervention, focusing on measures of youth violence victimization and offending as well as positive outcomes like graduation. At the end of the two-year project period, we hope to have generated new and unusually rigorous scientific evidence about the effects of a specific pilot program to prevent youth violence, and to have developed the infrastructure required to carry out additional randomized interventions in the future in collaboration with city government in Chicago and elsewhere. Because interventions are designed and implemented by existing community organizations and public agencies, the proposed project is well-equipped to provide realistic management and policy guidance to guide future interventions. NIH funding is crucial for enabling our research team to carry out these initial planning and design and subsequent evaluation activities. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Through a unique collaboration between our University of Chicago-based research team and city government in Chicago, this project seeks to identify effective ways of preventing youth violence through implementation and evaluation of randomized experimental interventions. Emphasis will be placed on interventions that try to prevent youth violence by promoting positive youth development and human capital accumulation by at-risk youth.