Primary Submission Category: Methodological approaches to studying public health
A path to unmute the voice of youth adults in the Bronx to participate in the Crime Prevention Policy Agendas
Authors: Maria-Isabel Roldos, Caroline Davis,
Presenting Author: Maria-Isabel Roldos*
TThe Bronx bears close to one-third of all violent crimes in New York City, and 90% of victims are male young adults between the ages of 24-65 years of age from a racial and ethnic minority. The voice and input of marginal urban young adults living in communities with a high incidence of violent crime are often misunderstood and therefore excluded from research and community practice opportunities. This research project used a cost-benefit analysis method known as contingent valuation – CV and willingness to pay -WTP surveys with two samples of young adults and two research approaches, to capture adolescents’ and young adults’ input in crime using a Community-Based Participatory Research approach (CBPR). The logic of the CV method is that respondents are asked to think about the public good as if it could be purchased in the marketplace and then they are asked how much they would be willing to pay for it. As such, respondents’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) amount reflects the value they place on the public good, which can thus be used as the benefits measure. These methods were used in a quantitative online survey with college students and the second in a qualitative focus group with young adults with exposure to violent crime. The focus of this manuscript is to showcase the opportunity for economic evaluation to involve hard-to-reach community members in research and community-orientated prevention. Through this approach, this project was able to demonstrate young adults and adolescents perceive sexual assault as a higher priority compared to other violent crime offenses, including homicide. The findings of this research, therefore, support that researchers need to be creative to include the voices of young former VC offenders and victims in the prevention discussion. Young adults in this research found the CV methodology innovative and attractive, especially among the college sample. Adolescents in the focus group enjoyed and expressed interest in speaking about economic concepts and the value of life. Results suggest that programs and interventions that illustrate the economic loss to society related to crime such as losses in productivity, costs to health care, and ultimately the societal costs of premature mortality, may engage adolescents in a meaningful conversation about crime prevention