School of Criminal Justice, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY, USA.
School of Criminal Justice, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY, USA.
Prev Med. 2022 Dec;165(Pt A):107186. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.107186. Epub 2022 Aug 6.
Community violence intervention strategies are rising in prominence as promising alternatives to traditional criminal justice responses to gun violence. Although such approaches may offer policy advantages and yield societal benefits, the costs to the practitioners of this work-owing to the intimate proximity to violence required by the job-have generally been overlooked. Using a first of its kind survey of nearly the entire population of community-based violence interventionists in Chicago, Illinois (United States), this study assesses the extent to which violence intervention workers experience Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). Responses to a series of 17 items on a Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale revealed alarmingly high levels of STS among violence interventionists: 94% of workers reported at least one STS indicator in the past 7 days and a full 50% reported experiencing 9 out of the 17 STS items. Our analysis further showed that the STS responses of interventionists were impacted by on-the-job traumatic experiences, particularly the death of a client. These results offer an important first systematic analysis of the trauma and mental health risks associated with community violence intervention practice and suggest that policymakers and practitioners should monitor and address worker risk of traumatic stress within this important public health profession.
社区暴力干预策略作为传统刑事司法应对枪支暴力的替代方案日益受到关注。尽管这些方法可能具有政策优势并带来社会效益，但由于工作需要与暴力密切接触，从事这项工作的从业者的成本通常被忽视了。本研究使用了一种针对伊利诺伊州芝加哥市几乎所有社区暴力干预者的首例调查，评估了暴力干预工作者经历二次创伤性应激（STS）的程度。对二次创伤性应激量表上的一系列 17 个项目的回应显示，暴力干预者中存在令人震惊的高 STS 水平：94%的工作人员在过去 7 天内报告了至少一个 STS 指标，整整 50%的工作人员报告经历了 17 个 STS 项目中的 9 个。我们的分析进一步表明，干预者的 STS 反应受到工作中创伤性经历的影响，特别是客户的死亡。这些结果提供了对与社区暴力干预实践相关的创伤和心理健康风险的重要首次系统分析，并表明政策制定者和从业者应在这一重要的公共卫生专业中监测和解决工作人员创伤应激的风险。
