# Preventing Youth Violence through Technology Enhanced Street Outreach: A Community Engaged Approach

> **NIH ALLCDC K01** · UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT STORRS · 2021 · $125,000

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Youth violence is widespread, including threats with firearms and physical assaults, but adolescents living in
disinvested urban neighborhoods – many of whom are underserved and racial minorities – experience an
elevated burden. While youth violence is a longstanding problem, social media dominates the social lives of
modern youth, and threats are now being expressed via social media in a phenomenon referred to as
“cyberbanging.” While data suggests that cyberbanging is implicated in multiple forms of youth violence,
including firearm-related violence, little is known about leverage points that might reduce it. Street outreach
programs are identified by the CDC as an evidence-based approach to violence prevention. However, these
programs were developed before social media became ubiquitous and do not address cyberbanging or use
social media to enhance delivery. Growing evidence highlights the promise of technology to address urban
adolescent mental health, but these insights have not been translated into youth violence prevention. Dr.
Caitlin Elsaesser is one of a small handful of researchers in the U.S. working to identify how youth violence is
shaped by social media, as well as youth behaviors that prevent cyberbanging. She previously developed and
is currently testing a 9-item measure of cyberbanging, at this time the only such measure known. With this K01
award, and in collaboration with COMPASS Youth Collaborative, Dr. Elsaesser will gather formative data to
develop a social media-based intervention to reduce cyberbanging implicated in youth violence by: (1)
Conducting focus groups with low-income urban adolescents and violence street outreach staff to explore
social media behaviors, strategies to avoid cyberbanging and preferences for social media-based
interventions; 2) Leveraging an ongoing study to conduct survey data to describe social media habits,
barriers/facilitators to cyberbanging and intervention preferences of this specific population and examine the
association between protective factors and three parallel youth violence outcomes (including firearm-related
violence); and 3) Using intervention mapping to draft messages and strategies for a future social media
intervention to address social media threats implicated in violence and then conducting confirmatory focus
groups with key stakeholders to gather feedback. This K01 award will provide Dr. Elsaesser with the training
and experience required to become an independent researcher specializing in technology-enhanced youth
violence prevention through training in 1) mixed methods, 2) intervention development, 3) social media-based
interventions and 4) leadership. The K01 award will lead to an R21 or R34 application to develop and test a
technology-enhanced street outreach intervention to reduce cyberbanging and violence among low-income
urban youth – thereby addressing the CDC's priority to evaluate the effectiveness of prevention strategies that
reduce you...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10268932
- **Project number:** 5K01CE003222-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT STORRS
- **Principal Investigator:** Caitlin Elsaesser
- **Activity code:** K01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $125,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-09-30 → 2022-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10268932

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10268932, Preventing Youth Violence through Technology Enhanced Street Outreach: A Community Engaged Approach (5K01CE003222-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10268932. Licensed CC0.

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