Engaging practitioners and academic researchers in co-developing evaluation measures for community violence interventions

Meron Girma; Julia P Schleimer; Andrew Hillen; Astrid Aveledo; Ayah Mustafa; Deepika Nehra; Dominique Davis; Elaine Gonzalez; Emily Westlake; Esprene Liddell-Quintyn; Kris Torset; Kristian Jones; Laura Johnson; Lina R Benson; Lynniah Grayson; Orlando Ames; Rachel Ross; Samantha Decker; Taffy Hunter; Tarell Harrison; Tier Simon-Matthews; Vivian Lyons; Zaheed Lynch; Ali Rowhani-Rahbar

doi:10.1186/s40621-025-00642-5

Engaging practitioners and academic researchers in co-developing evaluation measures for community violence interventions

Inj Epidemiol. 2025 Dec 10;13(1):7. doi: 10.1186/s40621-025-00642-5.

Authors

Meron Girma^#^{1

2}, Julia P Schleimer^#^{3

4}, Andrew Hillen⁵, Astrid Aveledo⁶, Ayah Mustafa¹, Deepika Nehra⁷, Dominique Davis⁸, Elaine Gonzalez⁹, Emily Westlake¹⁰, Esprene Liddell-Quintyn¹, Kris Torset⁶, Kristian Jones^{1

11}, Laura Johnson⁷, Lina R Benson⁷, Lynniah Grayson^{1

2}, Orlando Ames⁸, Rachel Ross¹, Samantha Decker⁹, Taffy Hunter¹², Tarell Harrison⁷, Tier Simon-Matthews¹³, Vivian Lyons^{1

14}, Zaheed Lynch⁸, Ali Rowhani-Rahbar^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Firearm Injury and Policy Research Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
² Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, 3980 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA.
³ Firearm Injury and Policy Research Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. jps36@uw.edu.
⁴ Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, 3980 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA. jps36@uw.edu.
⁵ Community Mediation Services, Vancouver, WA, USA.
⁶ Dispute Resolution Center of Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties, Aberdeen, WA, USA.
⁷ Violence Intervention Program, Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁸ Community Passageways, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁹ Walk About Yakima, Yakima, WA, USA.
¹⁰ CHOOSE 180, Burien, WA, USA.
¹¹ School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
¹² Spokane Regional Domestic Violence Coalition, Spokane, WA, USA.
¹³ Port of Support and Pathwayz to Success, Olympia, WA, USA.
¹⁴ Allies in Healthier Systems for Health and Abundance in Youth, Seattle, WA, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Community violence intervention (CVI) is increasingly considered an important component of comprehensive public safety infrastructure, but research and evaluation of CVI programs remain underdeveloped. There is a critical need for evaluation measures that are developed collaboratively with those most proximate to these interventions and that capture interventions' nuanced and holistic impacts. This paper presents the process and results of a practitioner-academic partnership to co-develop youth-focused CVI evaluation measures in Washington state.

Results: The process of co-developing evaluation measures involved two phases. For phase 1, we created a menu of quantitative measures (n = 60) for each outcome construct in a previously co-developed CVI theory of change by integrating existing measures, identified through a literature review, with insights and recommendations from CVI practitioners gathered during a workshop. For phase 2, we tailored and refined quantitative and qualitative measures with/for 7 CVI programs involved in the collaboration via individual meetings (n = 45 one-hour meetings over the course of 10 months, average = 6.4 meetings per program). The process of refining measures involved extensive discussion around several key considerations, including confidentiality, age appropriateness of questions, and language/jargon. After revisions, each CVI program had a customized list of quantitative and qualitative measures that fit their program and the population they served. We also created an online toolkit accompanying this paper so others may easily use, tailor, and build upon our work.

Conclusions: Our process of co-developing youth-focused CVI evaluation measures drew from existing literature while heavily prioritizing the knowledge, expertise, and capacity of CVI practitioners. This helped facilitate power sharing and responsiveness to community needs, and we believe it resulted in more appropriate and contextually relevant measures. By detailing the iterative process that we took along with the resulting evaluation measures, our intent is to encourage practitioner-academic collaboration and underscore how such partnerships can enhance the field's understanding of CVI implementation and impacts.

Keywords: Community violence intervention; Firearms; Program evaluation.