Community-Centered Strategies to Reduce Gun Violence: Developing Evidence for Policy and Practice

Community violence interventions (CVI) typically rely on individual-level behavioral change mechanisms, including law enforcement, social services, and therapeutic treatments. A few CVI models, however, include strategies derived from a public health framework to intervene at the level of neighborhoods and communities (e.g., Cure Violence). Community-centered and community-resourced approaches are important and potentially cost-effective, but they confront numerous challenges. Measuring community-level effects can be statistically complex, and advocates who support CVI as a social reform movement sometimes disparage the search for rigorous evidence. Funding agencies may support community action regardless of the evidence. These factors, and others, have resulted in a smaller-than-expected base of research evidence about community-centered and community-resourced violence prevention approaches. This Special Collection addresses challenges involved in developing evidence-backed, community-centered CVI models. What are the conceptual origins and theoretical foundations of community-centered violence prevention strategies? What CVI strategies should or should not be considered community-centered? What evaluation evidence exists for such models? What can researchers do to strengthen the evidentiary nexus of research, policy, and practice to support the political viability and growth of community-centered and community-resourced CVI approaches?