Violence

The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention supports American institutions of higher education in developing and carrying out prevention policies and programs that will promote campus and community safety and help nurture students' academic and social development. In the past, Center assistance focused on alcohol and other drug (AOD) use and its consequences, including violence. In recent years, the Center has expanded its focus to assist campuses with violence prevention issues more broadly.

The Higher Education Center's conceptual framework for alcohol and other drug (AOD) abuse prevention, "environmental management," is rooted in social ecological theory, a variant of the public health model, which spotlights the institutional, community, and public policy changes necessary for effective prevention, in addition to traditional awareness and education programs.

Similarly, recent work in violence prevention has been guided by the idea that health-related behavior is affected through multiple levels of influence: intrapersonal factors, interpersonal processes, institutional factors, community factors, and public policy. The public health perspective reminds us that violence is a complex behavior, with antecedents in biology, childhood experience, community norms, and social and economic conditions. Approaches focused on individual and peer education need to be supplemented by programs and policies to bring about changes in the environment that will lessen the risk of violence.

Key to the Center's approach is a focus on systematic planning and evaluation conducted by campus and community representatives working in collaboration. The process starts with a problem analysis designed to identify particular areas of concern in each campus community and to set priorities for prevention. These priorities, considered with research and best practices from the field, are used to create a strategic plan with clearly articulated goals and objectives and a plan for evaluation. Program implementation, process evaluation, and outcome evaluation go hand-in-hand.

The resources linked from the left-hand menu on this page are designed to assist you in planning and implementing effective violence prevention programs in campus communities.