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In response to fears regarding high-profiled school shootings and firearm violence, schools transformed dramatically, implementing school safety measures such as school police, armed security, metal detectors, and active shooter drills. This study used nationally representative data to assess the relationship between school safety policies and student perceptions of school safety for Youth of Color in comparison to non-Hispanic, White youth. Results show that an increase in the total number of school safety policies -- as well as specific types of school safety policies (i.e. armed security personnel and student search practices) -- are associated with lower perceptions of school safety for Youth of Color relative to White youth. Findings may inform school administrators' decisions regarding implementation of school safety policies to prevent school violence, including school-level decisions around firearm injury prevention efforts.

Firearm injury is a significant public health concern among youth living in the United States. Youth with exposure to violence (ETV) are more susceptible to carrying and using a firearm. Few researchers, however, have examined psychological mechanisms undergirding the association between ETV and firearm aggression. Retaliatory attitudes have been discussed as a potential mediator linking ETV with firearm aggression. Moreover, organized activity participation may disrupt direct and indirect pathways connecting ETV to firearm aggression. We tested: (a) the mediating role of retaliatory attitudes in the ETV-firearm aggression link, and (b) the moderating role of organized activity participation among 570 youth with past year illicit drug use and seeking emerging department care in an urban emergency department (ages 14-24; 58.8% males). Using multigroup path analysis, ETV indirectly influenced firearm aggression through retaliatory attitudes for youth not involved organized activities. Organized activities also buffered the association between retaliatory attitudes (mediator) and firearm aggression (outcome). Organized activities may, therefore, prevent firearm aggression by reducing retaliatory attitudes among youth contending with ETV.

To conduct our scoping review of risk and protective factors for firearm violence among youth, we searched PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, and Criminal Justice Abstracts for English-language research articles published between January 1985 and May 2018. We included studies of modifiable risk or protective factors associated with intentional (including suicide) or unintentional firearm victimization or perpetration with samples that included youth [less than or equal to] 17. Among the 28 included studies, 15 explored risk/protective factors for victimization, five focused on perpetration, five did not differentiate between victimization and perpetration, and five focused on suicide. Most studies examined individual-level risk factors. The few that explored factors beyond the individual were limited by methodological weaknesses and inconsistent findings. Protective factors for youth firearm outcomes were understudied. We need more research on youth firearm violence using longitudinal data and robust statistical methods. Future research is needed to understand the underlying mechanisms by which risk/protective factors influence firearm violence., Author(s): Carissa J. Schmidt [sup.1] , Laney Rupp [sup.1] , Jesenia M. Pizarro [sup.2] , Daniel B. Lee [sup.1] , Charles C. Branas [sup.3] , Marc A. Zimmerman [sup.1] Author [...]

The middle school and early high school years are a time of significant development, including an increasing ability to envision oneself in the future. Little is known about how adolescents' future-oriented self-concept (i.e., possible selves) differs across grade levels, although this knowledge may aid in establishing rapport with students and building effective health promotion and risk reduction interventions. Therefore, this study explored grade-level differences in hoped for and feared possible selves in a sample of sixth- to ninth-grade students (n = 2,498; M[subscript age] = 12.72, SD = 1.15; 51.3% female). Findings suggest that adolescents list a variety of possible selves, and the content differs according to grade level. These findings offer helpful insight for intervention work aimed at improving student outcomes and preventing risk behavior. Understanding what adolescents hope and fear for themselves in the future may be particularly beneficial for school nurses in identifying the unique challenges students experience and tailoring health promotion efforts.

Firearm injuries are a leading cause of injury-related deaths in the U.S., but there is a dearth of federal funding for research on firearm injury prevention, compared to funding for research on other injuries and diseases. University research centers/institutes (C/Is) are in a position to help generate such research: they are multidisciplinary, have the capacity to conduct large-scale research projects, and commonly address complex health and social problems. In this article, we trace the history of research on firearm injury prevention, describe the different kinds of C/Is and C/I networks that have been developed to build knowledge in other areas of critical social concern, and argue for the development of a national coordinated network of firearm injury prevention C/Is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]