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SELECT, ADAPT, EVALUATE
Violence prevention approaches based on the best available evidence are those that have been rigorously evaluated in one or more research studies and found to impact intended outcomes. Because each setting and community is different, you may wonder how to balance selecting an evidence-based approach that fits your community's unique needs. This site was developed to help you learn more about violence prevention approaches and think strategically about how to effectively select, adapt, and evaluate your next steps for violence prevention.
How to Use Select, Adapt, Evaluate
Before starting each section, remember to download any worksheets listed at the top of each page.
This resource includes six sections to help you select, adapt, and evaluate your violence prevention approach for your community's specific needs. The essential elements section will guide your understanding of the “what, how, and who” of a violence prevention approach. You will learn how to identify the essential elements of your approach and the possible impact of making changes to those elements. This resource will also provide tips on assessing fit of your approach for delivery context and setting, making adaptations to your prevention efforts, and learning to track and evaluate your approach using documentation and key data sources.
Throughout this resource, CDC is excited to take you on a journey through VetoVille, a hypothetical city, using the Select, Adapt, Evaluate resource to prevent violence and increase youth skills. The Select, Adapt, Evaluate resource library also includes more examples from VetoVille for community-level prevention. This resource is not intended to provide information about specific violence prevention strategies or approaches.
Types of Approaches Used to Prevent Violence
The violence prevention approaches include a range of programs, policies, and practices with evidence in preventing violence at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels of the social-ecological model. The social-ecological model shows the interplay between four levels of society:
Prevention strategies that work to alter community and societal conditions that put people at higher risk for violence are important for sustaining long-term violence prevention and achieving health equity.
To review violence prevention or reduction strategies that represent the best available evidence across the social-ecological model, visit: CDC's Prevention Resources for Action. For more information about selecting approaches for preventing violence based on the best available evidence, visit: Violence Prevention in Practice.
Welcome to VetoVille!
VetoVille received funding to create a new sexual violence prevention skill-building program with the goal of reducing rates of sexual violence among 8th and 9th grade students. The program planners will collaborate with an array of partners to select, adapt, and evaluate the program.