Abstract for: Understanding the drivers of youth violence in an urban community

Here, we use work from the Youth Violence Systems Project (Bridgewater, et al., 2011) to shed light on the drivers of youth violence in urban communities. The Youth Violence Systems Project (YVSP) was a multi-disciplinary, stakeholder-centric project in which a dynamic model was developed to help communities strategize for and achieve sustained reductions of youth violence in Boston. In the presentation, we: 1. Describe the stakeholder-centric process used in the project 2. Provide an overview of the YVSP model, identifying key features in its structure and in its user interface 3. Conduct simulation experiments, contrasting results of Operation Ceasefire initiatives with results of experiments in which simulated initiatives are informed by the feedback structure of the system Bridgewater, K., Peterson, S. M. J. & Hemenway, D., 2011. A Community-Based Systems Learning Approach to Understanding Youth Violence in Boston. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, pp. 67-75.