Grant: Catalyst Grant: Primary and Community-Based Healthcare

Youth violence is an immense burden in Canada. Violent injury is a significant risk factor for further violence and injury. It is estimated that almost 2/3 of youth assessed in the ED for an assault-related injury had received medical care for another assault-related injury in the prior year. Community youth violence prevention programs work with youth to address risk factors that otherwise would put them at risk of further violence. Unfortunately, there is no linkage between youth treated for violent injuries and the community programs designed to break the cycle of interpersonal violence. As many of these youth present to an ED, we postulate that this setting can be used to create a link between the injured and community programs in order to prevent recurrent intentional injury and violence. The purpose of this proposal is to evaluate the feasibility of a referral-based secondary prevention program designed to reduce the risk of recurrent injury due to violence. The preliminary data gained from this pilot prospective cohort study will support a larger planned pragmatic randomized control trial (RCT) that will measure the effectiveness of this intervention in reducing recurrent intentional injury.