WORKING WITH THE COMMUNITY TO DEVELOP A NEW MEASURE OF NEIGHBORHOOD YOUTH SUPPORT

Abstract

Despite the decline in homicide rates over the last twenty years, youth violence remains a significant public health issue which disproportionately affects young people of color and is often found at higher rates in urban, disadvantaged neighborhoods. To advance prevention efforts it is important to consider factors beyond the individual such as neighborhood and societal factors that influence youth development. Furthermore, input on neighborhood level factors from members of communities that experience high rates of youth violence can provide unique insight into community life and culture as well as engage communities in prevention efforts. The purpose of this project was to demonstrate a measurement development process that includes community participation and through that process, establish a measure that captures neighborhood social processes that may influence youth behavior as a local urban, disadvantaged community has described them. Previous community based participatory research (CBPR) efforts have identified a concept "neighborhood youth support" as important to youth violence prevention. Guided by principles of CBPR, the current study employed a mixed methods design to develop a measure of this concept. Results of a comprehensive review of social support concepts were used to identify constructs, measures and quality of the measures for the purpose of operationalizing "neighborhood youth support". Next a draft instrument and instructions for the instrument were created. This instrument was then assessed for content validity using a participatory research approach that engaged a community expert panel to review, revise and approve the final instrument for testing in the community. The measure was piloted with a convenience sample of community residents (N=65) and subsequently analyzed for internal consistency reliability and construct validity. Eleven community members and three academic researchers participated on the panel. The final measure consisted of 25 questions in five sub-scales: leadership, respect, intervening in negative behavior, adult presence, and active engagement in positive behavior. Results showed the individual scales to be internally consistent (alpha .626-.783). Principal axis factoring concluded that three of the five scales were measuring one domain while two others were not as clear. Spearman correlations showed moderate to strong positive correlations between these scales and already established scales thought to work similarly as the new scales. Results showed that the measure had good internal consistency and behaved as predicted in comparison to previously validated measures. Moreover, it was established that partnering with community members in measurement development is feasible. This study will help to inform future participatory projects by providing community and academic partnerships with a process for including community voice in measurement development. Finally, the results of this study could help future prevention efforts by providing academic and community researchers with a more nuanced measurement tool and a better understanding of community social processes.