NORC at the University of Chicago will evaluate a new CDC initiative to help urban communities prevent teen dating violence (TDV). On September 13th, 2011 Vice President Biden announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded $7 million dollars in grants to four communities for five years (Baltimore, Ft. Lauderdale, Chicago, and Oakland/Hayward) for its new teen dating violence prevention initiative, Dating Matters™: Strategies to Promote Healthy Teen Relationships.
The evaluation will examine the effectiveness of the Dating Matters program in aiding local health departments in leading their communities in developing and implementing a comprehensive public health approach to prevent teen dating violence before it starts. The evaluation will use a clustered randomized control trial (RCT) design to assess intervention outcomes such as student knowledge and attitudes toward TDV, and behavioral measures (victimization and perpetration). Following a planning year, the project will collect data through four years of longitudinal student surveys, school administrative data on disciplinary incidents and school climate, parent/caregiver surveys, educator and interventionist surveys, program monitoring/fidelity data, student and implementer focus groups, cost data on program implementation, and community indicator data. The roll-out of the initiative in this five-year demonstration phase will help CDC evaluate the cost, feasibility, sustainability, and effectiveness of a comprehensive approach to prevent teen dating violence in four high-risk urban communities. CDC also seeks to build health departments’ capacity to become key agents for dating violence prevention programming though the implementation of the Dating Matters™ violence prevention strategies, which include school-based programs for middle school students, parent programs, educator training, a communications campaign, and policy change.
There will be three waves of student surveys collected per year (paper-and-pencil) for four years (12 administrations) with about 14,400 eligible students per wave. Assuming that 80% of the 14,400 student sample stays with the same (participating) school for the entire timeframe of the study, 20% of our student sample (n= 2,880 students) will require more complex tracking. NORC will sample and track about 10% of the 2,880 students (n=288) three times per year for four years.
We will also conduct a student attrition bias experiment. NORC plans to follow 6 non-responding students per school per site (see Task 4) (48 schools * 6= n= 288). We will use a series of tracking techniques to identify a sample of students that have left the school and compare their survey results to those students still in the school.
For the parenting survey our plan is to invite all parenting program participants (Group I) to complete the baseline and subsequent surveys. For Groups II (parents in treatment schools but not participating in the parenting program) and III (parents in comparison schools and thus not offered the parenting program). NORC will select a random sample of 15% of the parents from the 14,400 students in the study (40 schools * 12 classrooms * 30 students per class= 14,400 students * 15%= 2,160 parents with participating students whose parents did not participate in the parenting program component) from the treatment and comparison school sites.
Our plan is to conduct eight administrations of the parent survey (two per year). We plan to aggressively follow up with up to 5 non-respondent parents per school across each of the four study sites (n~200). This Parent Non-Response Bias Experiment will be implemented as a part of the Parent Data Collection (Task 9), inclusive of multiple follow-up methods to reach the sample.
Our plan is to conduct online surveys with the educators (teachers of the school). Five web-based Educator (anonymous, identified by school only) surveys delivered via email link to all Educators in participating schools. Baseline surveys in October 2012 and follow-up survey on May 2013. Three additional follow-up surveys implemented in May of Years 3-5.
Four web-based Interventionist surveys will be delivered via email link to all Interventionists in participating schools (one survey done once per year for four years).