Other Statistical Lives

While recent scholarship has considered how algorithmic risk assessment is both shaped by and impacts social inequity, public health has not adequately considered the ways that statistical risk functions in the social world. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data collected in interpersonal violence prevention programs, this manuscript theorizes three “other lives” of statistically produced risk factors: the past lives of risk factors as quantifiable lived experience, the professional lives of risk as a practical vocabulary shaping social interactions, and the missing lives of risk as a meaningful social category for those marked as at risk. The manuscript considers how understanding these other lives of statistical risk can help public health scholars better understand barriers to social equity.

‘Once You Say the Word Gender, People Become Afraid’: The Consequences of the Gender Backlash in Education in Brasil

Conservative religious, activist and political groups fuel gender backlash in many spaces. This paper explores this phenomenon and its effects on educational programs designed to prevent gender-based violence in Brasilian schools. It argues that this gender backlash in educative spaces violates fundamental rights, like the right to equality and protection against discrimination and violence, and ultimately contributes to the continuity and escalation of gender-based violence in Brasil. This context shapes advocacy work and the facilitators and participants of its programs. Primary prevention research is mainly conducted in the Global North. This article, guided by a southern feminist framework and informed by 14 interviews with Brasilian advocates engaged in youth gender-based violence prevention programs, addresses a significant knowledge deficit and offers new insights in working in challenging contexts. It suggests that the backlash is mostly directed at LGBTIQA+ cohorts due to the ongoing political attacks on these groups, but it has also undermined the capacity of educational prevention strategies for gender-based violence more widely.

The Effectiveness of College Dating Violence Prevention Programs: A Meta-Analysis

Due in part to their involvement with social activities on campus, college students experience an increased risk of dating violence. Recent legislation such as the Campus SaVE Act (which requires U.S. colleges to offer training on sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and sexual harassment to all incoming students) has contributed to the increase in prevention programming offered across postsecondary campuses, as well as subsequent research examining the effectiveness of these prevention efforts. The current study provides a systematic review and meta-analysis of college dating violence prevention programs. A systematic search of 28 databases and numerous gray literature sources identified an initial 14,540 articles of which 315 were deemed potentially eligible for inclusion. Studies were selected if they (1) evaluated a college dating prevention program/campaign, (2) reported one of five outcomes (knowledge, attitudes, or bystander efficacy, intentions, or behavior), (3) had a minimum sample size of 20 in the treatment group, (4) used a pre/post and/or comparison group design, and (5) were published in English or French between January 2000 and October 2020. We calculated 53 effect sizes from 31 studies and conducted separate meta-analyses on various categories of outcome measures. Findings suggest that college dating violence prevention programs are effective at increasing knowledge and attitudes toward dating violence, as well as bystander skills, but are not effective at increasing bystander behaviors. Findings from moderator analyses suggest that several program components influence the strength of treatment effects. Implications for improving the effectiveness of college dating violence prevention programs are discussed.

Consensus-based Standards and Indicators to strengthen trauma center injury and violence prevention programs

For decades, the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACSCOT) has published Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient, which outlines specific criteria necessary to be verified by the college as a trauma center, including having an organized and effective approach to prevention of trauma. However, the document provides little public health-specific guidance to assist trauma centers with developing these approaches. An advisory panel was convened in 2017 with representatives from national trauma and public health organizations with the purpose of identifying strategies to support trauma centers in the development of a public health approach to injury and violence prevention and to better integrate these efforts with those of local and state public health departments. This panel developed the Standards and Indicators for Model Level I and II Trauma Center Injury and Violence Prevention Programs. The document outlines five, consensus-based core components of a model injury and violence prevention program: (1) leadership, (2) resources, (3) data, (4) effective interventions, and (5) partnerships. We think this document provides the missing public health guidance and is an essential resource to trauma centers for effectively addressing injury and violence in our communities. We recommend the Standards and Indicators be referenced in the injury prevention chapter of the upcoming revision of ACSCOT’s Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient as guidance for the development, implementation and evaluation of injury prevention programs and be used as a framework for program presentation during ACSCOT verification visits.

“Be proactive not reactive”: Understanding gaps in student sexual consent education

A growing number of universities are providing sexual violence prevention programs to students in recognizing the need for this programming. While universities favour programs on singular topics aimed at preventing sexual violence, scholars have argued that comprehensive sexual health education should begin prior to entering university to better ensure safer campus communities. Further, students have expressed unmet needs regarding the sexual health education they received prior to attending university. Therefore, the current study sought to explore gaps in sexual health education as identified by university students. Participants ( N = 444) were asked to describe the consent definition they were taught in high school and from their parents, and how the sexual health education they received could have been improved. An inductive thematic analysis was used to identify six themes from the data: back to consent education basics, you have the power to set boundaries, staying safe in sexual situations, take a sex-positive approach with sex education, wholistic education on consent-based relations, and practical recommendations for providing sex education. Findings highlight that participants desired a more wholistic approach to their sexual health education that included practical components on healthy sexuality. Notably, participants relayed how proper sexual health education may have prevented experiences of sexual violence they had. Thus, it is essential to continue exploring how best to provide comprehensive sexual health education to adolescents.

Not Seeing Like a State: Mandated Reporting, State-Adjacent Actors and the Production of Illegible Subjects

Previous scholarship has described how the state “sees” subjects and is itself seen, but has not adequately considered the unfolding interactional dynamics through which subjects become legible or not. This article devises an analytical approach to the micro-dynamics of legibility. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data from violence prevention programs in Los Angeles high schools, the author examines the street-level enactment of third-party mandated reporting, which tasks state-adjacent actors with reporting when a student discloses harm. While the delegation of reporting broadens the state’s horizon of visibility, it also disrupts taken for granted mechanisms of state legibility and perception. This study maps a sequence of micro-level dynamics through which illegible subjects are produced. First, third-party mandated reporters distanced themselves from the visible marks of the state in interactions with young people and presented themselves using markers of interpersonal connection. Second, students applied pre-existing situational definitions of interactions with non-state adults, opening up space for accounts of harm to emerge. Finally, facilitators produced illegibility as they discouraged young people from engagement with the state and trained them in interactional strategies of vagueness and de-personalization to make their harm illegible to policy mechanisms.