Abstract
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has an emerging portfolio of research in the area of teen dating violence (also known as adolescent relationship abuse). This article begins with a discussion of the developments that prompted NIJ to focus on teen dating violence. Next, the article highlights specific accomplishments and contributions that NIJ has made to helping develop knowledge and scientific understanding of adolescent relationship abuse, particularly around the prevention of teen dating violence perpetration and victimization. This is followed by a presentation of some of the key findings from NIJ-funded research. We then move to a discussion of some of the complex issues around definition, measurement and research methods and how NIJ has been involved in addressing those issues. The article concludes with some thoughts about the intersection of teen dating violence research, policy, and practice and highlights several research gaps that are in need of additional attention.
Background
Teen dating violence is a well-recognized term that describes a range of abusive behaviors that preteens, adolescents, and young adults experience in the context of a past or present romantic or dating relationship. 1 The behaviors include physical and sexual violence, stalking, and psychological abuse, which includes control and coercion. Abuse may be experienced in person or via technology. Approximately one in 10 youth report being hit, slapped, or physically hurt on purpose by their boyfriend or girlfriend, a rate that has remained relatively stable over the past decade (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2009). Across several studies, boys and girls report similar rates of physical and psychological abuse victimization by their partners, but girls report higher rates of injurious violence and sexual violence victimization. 2 Girls also report having more fear as a result of being in an abusive dating relationship (Hamby & Turner, 2012). In relationships where there is physical abuse, the norm is for both parties to be physically violent. It is far less common for there to be one member of the couple who is a victim only and the other who is a perpetrator only (Mulford & Giordano, 2008).
The 2005 reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act (VAWA) included a new emphasis on addressing teen dating violence. Recognizing that adolescents experience high rates of sexual assault and intimate partner violence, the Act provided for the provision of education and services to children and youth. The 2005 reauthorization of VAWA was also the beginning of an explosion of interest in the topic. The following year, in 2006, Congress recognized Teen Dating Violence Prevention Awareness week for the first time. It took less than 5 years for Congress to lengthen the dedication from 1 week to 1 month. In February 2012, advocates, practitioners, teens, researchers, and policy makers celebrated the third Teen Dating Violence Prevention Awareness month. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (2012), at least 17 states have enacted legislation that encourages or requires teen dating violence prevention education in schools and another five states have legislation pending in 2012. In addition to attention at the legislative level, there have been a number of federal and foundation initiatives that have provided funding to communities to address teen dating violence prevention, such as the 11-site Robert Wood Johnson Start Strong Initiative 3 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Dating Matters Initiative. 4
It is difficult to point to one incident that has galvanized the field and captivated the interest of funders and policy makers. Several high profile events, including the abusive relationship between music icons Rihanna and Chris Brown, and the murder of Yardley Love, a University of Virginia undergraduate student, at the hands of her on-again off-again boyfriend, George Hugely, have kept the spotlight on the topic. Like the media and advocacy attention to the topic, research on teen dating violence has also grown, although not as rapidly. In each year between 2004 and 2007, there were approximately 100 peer-reviewed journal articles on the topic, and in each year between 2008 and 2011 there were approximately 135 articles. 5
Prior to 2006, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) had funded a couple of research grants related to teen dating violence. Those grants were not part of any concerted plan to focus on adolescent relationship abuse, but rather were initiated by researchers in the field who applied to our broad violence against women solicitations. Then in 2006, NIJ hosted a small workshop aimed at identifying gaps in the research and practice around the issue of relationship abuse and violence among teens (http://www.nij.gov/nij/topics/crime/violence-against-women/workshops/teen-dating.htm). The impetus for the meeting was a growing realization that in order to prevent intimate partner violence in young adults, we needed to better understand the development of adolescent relationship dynamics. Primary prevention certainly needed to start before adulthood, as it was clear that many adolescents had abusive relationships in high school and some as early as middle school (Burcky, Reuterman, & Kopsky, 1988; Foshee, Linder, MacDougall, & Bangdiwala, 2001). 6 At the same time, there was limited evidence to support the effectiveness of interventions aimed at preventing intimate partner abusers from reoffending or keeping victims safe from revictimization (Babcock, Green, & Robie, 2004).
Interagency cooperation has been a sustained and critically important feature of NIJ’s involvement in teen dating violence research. From the interest generated by the initial workshop, NIJ reached out to a larger network of federal partners and the group started meeting regularly. NIJ has been coordinating the Federal Interagency Workgroup on Teen Dating Violence (herein referred to as the Workgroup) since September 2006. The group meets about every eight weeks and has had numerous researcher and practitioner speakers, who have presented on a wide range of publicly and privately funded programs and projects. There are approximately 70 individuals representing 18 agencies across the Departments of Education (ED), Justice (DOJ), Health and Human Services (HHS), Defense (DOD), and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on the Workgroup email distribution list. In addition to providing a forum for information sharing and presentations, the Workgroup has collaborated and/or pooled resources to host workshops, fund projects, and draft articles and solicitation language. Below are a few concrete examples of ways in which the Workgroup has facilitated collaboration between agencies:
Led by DHHS and DOJ, the Workgroup hosted a large multidisciplinary meeting of researchers and practitioners on Teen Dating Violence in December 2007. (http://www.nij.gov/nij/topics/crime/violence-against-women/workshops/teen-dating-violence-agenda.htm). Out of that meeting, the Workgroup developed the research questions and language that were used in a National Institutes of Health Program Announcement and in NIJ solicitations in FY 2009 and 2010. 7
The Workgroup dedicated two meetings to reviewing drafts of an article that appeared in the NIJ Journal (Mulford & Giordano, 2008).
On three separate occasions, NIJ has received financial support from another agency, outside of DOJ, to cofund a research project submitted and reviewed through a NIJ solicitation.
The Workgroup identified the need to incorporate youth perspectives into the federal programmatic and research agendas around teen dating violence. As a result, multiple agencies collaborated to plan and fund a research project that uses concept mapping to better understand how adolescents and young adults think about relationship characteristics. Their perspectives will be compared with those of the adult practitioners and researchers who work in the area of teen dating violence. The project is ongoing and several members of the Workgroup are on the concept mapping project planning group (http://www.nij.gov/nij/topics/crime/intimate-partner-violence/teen-dating-violence/research-agenda.htm).
As the coordinating agency for the Federal Interagency Workgroup on Teen Dating Violence, NIJ has been invited to speak at events such as the meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Violence against Women and the CDC-hosted meeting on Defining Healthy Relationships. The strong relationships that NIJ has developed with other federal agencies, advocacy groups, and researchers have had a profound influence on the development of the teen dating violence research agenda at NIJ over the past 7 years. As such, NIJ’s work in this area has been guided by a federal effort to combat violence from a public health perspective, with a heavy emphasis on prevention.
Program of Research
Over the course of the past 5 years (from 2008-2012), NIJ has invested nearly US$10 million in research on adolescent relationship abuse. In fiscal year (FY) 2008, following the 2006 workshop, NIJ issued its first research solicitation that identified teen dating violence as a priority area. This solicitation drew upon the findings from the workshop and had a fairly broad range of targeted topics, including: (a) exploring the context and meaning of relationship violence; (b) understanding gender differences in relationship abuse; and (c) evaluating teen dating violence interventions and responses. The first solicitation only drew four applications, of which two were funded, both intervention studies.
Over the next 3 years, NIJ strengthened its commitment to teen dating violence research. Solicitations were expanded to reflect the input from the Workgroup and the 2007 Workshop and refined each year to incorporate newly identified priorities and ongoing work in the field. The NIJ FY 2009, 2010, and 2011 solicitations for research on teen dating violence had two particular focus areas: (a) research on the extent of the problem and characteristics of abusive teen relationships, and (b) evaluation of teen dating violence programs, policies, and legislation. The parameters of the solicitations required that research focus on middle-school or high-school aged youth.
Across the period between FY 2009 and 2011, NIJ received over 100 applications for research projects and funded over a dozen new studies. In the area of evaluation, NIJ has funded a total of eight studies, including a series of three evaluations of a school-wide and classroom-based programs. The second and third studies in the series built on knowledge from the previous evaluations. The other evaluation studies have covered a range of interventions, including a multilevel clinic-based intervention, an intervention with foster-care girls, a policy assessment on protection orders, a school-based intervention that replicates an effective Canadian program, and a family-based intervention targeting moms who have experienced domestic violence and their teens. (For findings from the completed studies, see the Key Results/Findings section below.)
In addition to its groundbreaking work in the area of dating violence prevention, NIJ is supporting ongoing research examining prevalence and risk factors associated with dating violence. Current studies are adding to our understanding of dating violence among Latino youth, the use of technology to perpetrate dating violence, and the risk of dating older or gang-involved partners. NIJ has also funded a large nationally representative survey that will provide a comprehensive picture of dating abuse among youth. 8
The most recent development in NIJ’s program of research on teen dating violence is an effort to simultaneously explore the unique relationship contexts of teen dating violence as well as the extent to which teen dating violence shares risk and protective factors and consequences with other problem behaviors experienced by youth. One of the research questions that has been plaguing the field since its inception is the sequencing of abusive and aggressive behaviors from childhood bullying to sexual harassment to teen dating abuse to adult intimate partner violence. In addition, researchers have begun to suggest that unique relational and/or contextual factors may play critical roles in the development of TDV over time. For example, recent findings indicate that there is greater continuity of violence within a given relationship than across relationships, suggesting that individual vulnerability interacts with relationship dynamics (see Capaldi, Shortt, & Crosby, 2003). Two ongoing NIJ longitudinal studies are attempting to address and tease apart some of these questions: one focused on the link between bullying, sexual harassment, and teen dating violence; and the other focused on the relationship contexts within which abuse occurs as teenagers transition to adulthood.
As a next step in facilitating this line of research, NIJ has recently sought to determine more explicitly how teen dating violence fits into the sequencing of high-risk behavior and to determine the extent of shared and independent risks and consequences associated with teen dating violence when explored alongside other risky behaviors. Many longitudinal data collection efforts have examined the precursors and antecedents to a range of high-risk adolescent behaviors, such as alcohol, drug and tobacco use, risky sexual behaviors, and delinquency, among others. NIJ hosted a meeting on longitudinal data in order to begin to explore these questions. For the meeting, a paper was commissioned that included an inventory of relevant longitudinal data sets that either could or did include dating abuse as either a predictor or outcome of interest (http://www.nij.gov/nij/topics/crime/intimate-partner-violence/teen-dating-violence/longitudinal-data-meeting/welcome.htm). The meeting was held in June 2011, and in FY 2012, NIJ issued two solicitations as a direct result of the needs identified by the field at the 2011 meeting. One solicitation requested applications for postdoctoral fellows to analyze existing longitudinal data that had included measures of dating violence. The other request was for applications to add additional waves of data to ongoing longitudinal data collections. NIJ funded two awards under each of these solicitations. Projects include adding TDV measures and a high school wave of data collection to a study examining risk and development among children of alcoholics who have been followed since birth, and a study adding three waves of adolescent/young adult data to an ongoing examination of the etiology and course of TDV across time and relationships. The two postdoctoral fellowships will examine: (a) gendered patterns, precursors, and consequences of IPV across the transition to adulthood, and (b) the development of trajectories, risk factors, and consequences of TDV victimization among a middle school sample of urban youth. NIJ’s expectation is that these newly funded research projects (along with the two ongoing studies focused on these questions) will put adolescent relationship abuse in context with other problem behaviors and/or enhance our understanding of the association of relationship abuse with the changing nature and characteristics of teen and young adult relationships.
Key Results and Findings
As NIJ’s program of research on dating violence is still relatively new, the majority of the funded studies (as noted above) are ongoing and thus do not have final results at the time of this publication. However, NIJ-supported research has made significant contributions in the area of prevention of dating violence.
Prevention Research
Overall, there is good news in the area of prevention. An accumulating body of rigorous research is showing that prevention programs can be quite successful in reducing both perpetration and victimization of dating violence (Foshee et al., 2004; Foshee et al., 2005; Wolfe et al., 2009). Most of these programs focus on changing knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors linked with dating violence, while also developing the skills needed to build healthy relationships. In a report released by the World Health Organization in late 2010, entitled Preventing Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Violence Against Women: Taking Action and Generating Evidence, the authors conclude that “there is currently only one strategy for the prevention of intimate partner violence that can be classified effective at preventing actual violence. This is the use of school-based programs to prevent violence within dating relationships” (p. 39). As noted, the majority of effective programs are school-based, universal prevention programs. However, more recent evidence suggests that programs targeting families can impact teens’ acceptance of violence in relationships and decrease victimization (Foshee et al., 2012), while an innovative program targeting high school male athletes can be effective in reducing psychological/verbal dating violence perpetration and bystander intervention (Miller et al., 2012).
Intervening With Middle School Students
The majority of these effective programs, particularly the school-based ones, have been developed and evaluated only for high school students. Yet, there is substantial evidence indicating that high rates of abusive behaviors are occurring in dating relationships in middle school youth. In a study of 5,000 sixth graders across four sites, about half the youth were dating. Among those, 42% report victimization by a dating partner and 29% report perpetration against a dating partner (Simon, Miller, Gorman-Smith, Orpinas, & Sullivan, 2010). More recently, as part of a baseline assessment for an evaluation of the Start Strong Initiative 1,430 seventh-grade students from eight middle schools were surveyed. Seventy-five percent indicated that they had ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend, 37% reported being a victim of psychological dating violence in the last 6 months, 31% had been a victim of electronic dating violence, and 15% had been a victim of physical dating violence. In addition, 37% indicated they had witnessed a peer being physically violent with their dating partner (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2012).
Thus, intervening in these formative years appears critical. Given that youth are already beginning to explore and participate in relationships in middle school, intervening in this early period becomes essential, hopefully in order to facilitate the development of healthy relationship skills and prevent the emergence of violent patterns that may set the stage for continuation into the young adult years and beyond. The only known rigorous evaluation of a dating violence prevention program for middle school youth is a NIJ-funded project.
Building on an earlier NIJ-funded study that examined the impact of a classroom-based prevention curriculum for middle school students, the Shifting Boundaries Program sought to evaluate the effectiveness of a universal preventive dating violence and sexual harassment intervention that incorporated both a classroom-based curriculum component as well as a school-wide, building-level component. Thirty public middle schools in New York City were randomly assigned to receive either the classroom-level interventions alone, the school-level interventions alone, a combination, or no intervention. Classroom-level interventions were delivered in six sessions using a curriculum emphasizing the consequences for perpetrators, state laws and penalties, the construction of gender roles, and healthy relationships. School-level interventions included the use of temporary school-based restraining orders, higher levels of faculty and security presence in “hot spots,” and raising awareness school-wide. Findings indicate that, compared to the control group, students who received the school-level intervention or both the school- and classroom-level intervention experienced reduced levels of dating violence and sexual harassment, in some cases by as much as 50%. Notably, the classroom-level intervention alone was not effective in reducing these outcomes. In addition, students in the school-level intervention were more likely to intend to intervene as a bystander if they witnessed abusive behavior between their peers (Taylor, Stein, Woods, & Mumford, 2011).
With additional funding from NIJ, these researchers are expanding the study to include the addition of eighth-grade students to the intervention and evaluating the impact of receiving a developmentally targeted version of the program in several consecutive years. This series of studies demonstrates the benefits of deliberately building on prior work in order to develop, test, and refine preventive interventions with the goal of ultimately understanding more about key mechanisms of effect in various contexts.
Intervening Among At-Risk Youth
NIJ-supported research has also begun to move the field beyond the standard universal, school-based programs by targeting youth who are at known elevated risk and by using parents (mothers) as an intervention agent. NIJ supported the development of an intervention that targets youth who have been exposed to domestic violence. Although this population is at increased risk for both victimization and perpetration of dating violence, this is the first intervention designed specifically for this population. In this pilot study, the investigator sought to adapt an existing evidence-based program, Families for Safe Dates (Foshee et al., 2012), for this vulnerable population. Families for Safe Dates consists of six interactive booklets mailed to families to complete on their own, followed by health educator calls 2 weeks after each mailing.
In the first phase of the pilot, the investigators recruited 28 women who had been victims of domestic violence but were no longer living with their partners and 35 of their 12- to 15-year-old adolescents to complete a modified six-booklet series and then participate in a series of individual interviews or focus groups to provide feedback on the intervention. In the second phase, a pilot randomized trial of the intervention was conducted with 51 mothers and their adolescents (76% female). After completing a baseline interview, families were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) the booklets and a health educator call; (b) the booklets alone; or (c) a no intervention control group.
Lessons learned from this pilot intervention include decisions regarding recruitment strategies, data collection procedures, measures, and program administration, including elimination of the health educator calls. Analysis of baseline data suggested that the intervention was in fact reaching the target high-risk group: teens were exposed to an average 7 years of domestic violence and had high rates of dating violence compared to national averages. Rates of exposure to bullying, sexual harassment, and peer aggression as both victims and perpetrators were also high. Given low rates of booklet completion and low follow-up rates, initial examination of program effects could not be examined in the pilot study (Foshee et al., 2012). Nonetheless, valuable insights were provided, which were instrumental in guiding the development, refinement, and implementation of a large-scale efficacy study of this program that is funded by the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/injury/erpo/awards/grants/2010/CE001867.html).
Methods and Measurement
As with most emerging fields of research, issues related to definitions and measurement have been an important part of the conversation. In order to provide a starting point for the initial federal conversations on this topic, at the first Teen Dating Violence Workshop in 2006, a working definition was provided to allow the group to have a starting point on which they could agree. A definition used by CDC was proposed: physical, sexual, or psychological/emotional violence within a dating relationship, as well as stalking. It may occur in person or electronically, and it may occur between a current or former dating partner. Since then, NIJ has developed its own, similar working definition which has guided its work in this area over the years: Teen dating violence—also called intimate relationship violence or intimate partner violence among adolescents, or adolescent relationship abuse—includes physical, psychological, or sexual abuse; harassment; or stalking of any person ages 12 to 18 in the context of a past or present romantic or consensual relationship. While the majority of NIJ’s efforts have focused on this age group, given our goal of understanding the developmental trajectories of dating violence and related behaviors, we recently began to expand the definition to include the young adult population (roughly ages 18-24) in our conceptualization and ongoing work.
Operationalizing a TDV definition
While most researchers in the field would likely agree in theory with this broad-based and inclusive definition, operationalizing this definition into specific measurement and assessment tools has not proceeded with consensus. Studies vary tremendously in how dating violence is assessed, including differences in time frames (e.g., lifetime or past year), how “dating” or relationships are defined, and whether sexual or psychological/emotional abuse is assessed. Such differences, along with differences in populations sampled, account for the large variations in reported prevalence rates.
At the first two NIJ Teen Dating Violence Workshops, measurement issues were discussed. It was pointed out that the majority of existing studies thus far used some version of an “ACT” scale, which essentially assesses specific acts and behaviors (e.g., the number of times a person perpetrates or experiences certain acts, such as pushing, slapping, or hitting). It was clearly recognized that while useful as a starting point, these discreet behavioral measures do not fully capture the complexity of the dynamics involved in either adolescent relationships or critical contextual influences such as gender. However, at that time, it was determined that it was still too early to attempt to come to some consensus around these complex measurement issues, and that it would be best to let the field wrestle with the questions and see what could be learned from additional research in this area.
In the intervening years between these first two workshops and the most recent one in 2011, some progress has been made. For example, a few researchers have begun to use qualitative and observational tools in order to better assess the complexity of the dynamics of power, control, gender, and other contextual- and relationship-level influences manifesting themselves in adolescent dating relationships. Yet, limitations of existing measures continue to dominate discussions in the field. At the 2011 longitudinal data meeting, these same themes emerged, particularly with respect to ensuring that our understanding of dating and relationships is aligned with the perspectives of youth. The concept mapping study that NIJ and other federal partners are sponsoring (see above) will provide useful insight into how both adults and youth view adolescent relationships, including definitions of “healthy” and “unhealthy” features. This discussion also revisited the importance of ensuring that the normative, developmental perspectives on adolescent romantic relationships were incorporated into our thinking about definitions and measurement issues, particularly by engaging researchers who are examining normative romantic relationships.
Current Efforts
Despite some progress, it was noted at the 2011 workshop that we still do not have consensus on the “best” measures or group of measures that could be recommended to researchers who want to add assessments of dating violence to their ongoing work. All present agreed that more work is needed to develop a better measure that incorporates critical contextual constructs, such as impacts of specific incidents as well as fear and injury. It was agreed that perhaps the field had developed these measures sufficiently to begin to bring together researchers and other experts to work on developing a consensus.
As a first step, NIJ, in collaboration with CDC, is embarking on a project to compile a database of working definitions and measurement tools that are currently being used by federally funded researchers to assess dating violence. In order to be inclusive and fully capture the range of contextual variables, we are considering studies involving youth up to age 24, and we are collecting information on the following domains:
What is the reporting timeframe?
Does the measure assess perpetration or victimization or both?
What type and length of relationship are required to count in the measure?
Is there any distinction for current or former partner?
Are same-sex partners included? If so, is there a way to distinguish from opposite-sex partners?
What types of behaviors are measured:
Emotional/psychological abuse Physical violence Sexual violence Stalking behaviors
Are there exceptions for play fighting?
Are there exceptions for self-defense?
Are any consequences included, such as fear or injury?
Is the use of technology included?
This list will provide a valuable resource for the field to begin to examine the range of ways in which dating violence is being assessed and can provide guidance about how best to move forward with developing and refining measures to include more critical contextual variables. In addition, this project will hopefully provide some insight into how to work towards developing consensus on the most useful, valid, and meaningful ways to assess adolescent relationship abuse. However, it is certainly recognized that consensus on one particular measure will not likely be reached; rather, a range of measures will be necessary, as some will be more suited for particular populations, research questions, or contexts.
Once this compilation is completed, NIJ and CDC will explore the possibility of coproducing a publication series that would analyze the measures database, provide a critical review of the measures being used informed by developmental theory, and build on the review by bridging this work to the empirical literature on healthy adolescent romantic relationships more broadly. As this work moves forward, it will also be important to consider how additional contextual factors such as gender, culture, and the meanings and interpretations of specific behaviors may be best incorporated. Techniques such as observational measures, social network analyses, and experience sampling methods—designed to capture participants’ thoughts, feelings and behaviors repeatedly in real time in natural settings—may be promising future directions for exploring such rich yet complex dynamics.
Policy and Practice Implications
Through NIJ’s leadership in the Federal Interagency Workgroup on Teen Dating Violence and in leading federal research support for this area, NIJ staff serve as a critical resource for information about the latest research for federal partners who work directly with programs and policies, as well as outside organizations such as Futures Without Violence (http://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/), who have an active role in dating violence programming and advocacy. For example, NIJ staff receive frequent requests to review for accuracy fact sheets, website information, policy guidelines being provided to states, and policy briefs that contain data and specific research findings related to teen dating violence. NIJ staff have also been asked to present on the state of research in teen dating violence or teen dating violence prevention at occasions such as meetings of the National Advisory Council for the Office of Violence against Women and the National Conference of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools (now the Office of Safe and Healthy Students). NIJ staff were recently called to provide their input surrounding changing the way dating violence is currently being measured on a national survey (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/yrbs/index.htm) sponsored by the CDC, which clearly will have long-term implications for surveillance and prevalence data.
In addition to these specific activities, regular meetings and collaborations with workgroup members whose agencies provide technical assistance, support, and training to organizations working directly with the target populations, ensure that such efforts are informed by the current state of the research. Thus, NIJ’s efforts in building these strong collaborative relationships over the years have been critical to facilitating communication among the research, practice, and policy communities.
Given the relative newness of the TDV research portfolio, there have been few opportunities to directly translate research findings from a specific NIJ-funded study to the policy and practice community. Yet, the Shifting Boundaries middle school prevention intervention discussed above generated tremendous interest in the field and led to numerous opportunities for dissemination and translation to these audiences. Particularly because of the findings regarding the impact of school-level interventions that were relatively inexpensive to implement, as well as the fact that the study was conducted with a large, diverse student population, many in the field were excited about the possible implications of this study. NIJ staff, working closely with the principal investigators, provided press releases, media interviews, webinars, and a feature on the NIJ website among initial activities. NIJ staff were also approached by the Office of the Vice President to do a briefing on this study and its implications, particularly for guidance being developed for schools around dating violence practices, policies, and programs. A briefing was also provided to CDC Dating Matters staff as they were developing the protocols for a comprehensive dating violence prevention initiative to be implemented with 11- to 14-year-old youth in four high-risk, urban communities across the country. The profound interest in this study speaks to the desire in the field for evidence that is relevant to their work and provides an excellent example of how existing relationships can be critical in facilitating the appropriate dissemination of research findings.
Another NIJ-funded study explicitly focuses on policy by examining the use of protection orders among youth in New York State. Although still ongoing, this study will provide important information about the context in which these new laws (active in other states as well) are being implemented and used. Importantly, this particular study has an advisory board of judges, school personnel, and other relevant professionals in New York State. The advisory board is reviewing all findings from the study and providing valuable insight and input to investigators and NIJ staff about how best to integrate and translate findings so they can have direct policy implications and provide guidance for other states.
As additional NIJ-funded studies come to completion, staff will continue to build on existing relationships and will work to ensure that findings are communicated in ways that are relevant and applicable to our policy and practice colleagues.
Conclusions
Considering that NIJ has only had a portfolio of research on teen dating violence since 2006, the scientific contributions that NIJ has made to the field have been notable. NIJ attributes the success of its teen dating violence research portfolio to several factors, including strong partnerships with agencies and organizations within and outside the federal government, an ability to look back and learn from our experience over the past 17 years of violence against women research, a funding stream dedicated to research on violence against women and girls, and a commitment to building a research agenda based on what is already known in the field.
There are still many areas in need of additional research. For example, despite the emphasis on youth-led initiatives in the field and programs that involve boys in combating teen dating violence, very little is known about the effectiveness of these types of programs. In addition, the majority of established prevention programs continue to be universal, school-based programming. While such programs are critically important, given the limitations of school-based programming, alternatives are needed. Specifically, more research is needed to develop effective programs for youth who may not be in traditional school settings—such as youth in the juvenile justice system—or youth who are at higher risk and may need additional support or programming. Moving beyond prevention, more basic research is still needed to better understand whether and how our existing knowledge about adolescent relationship abuse applies to nonheterosexual youth, youth with disabilities, or youth from a range of religious and/or ethnic backgrounds where norms and practices around dating and relationships may differ. In partnership with CDC, we have begun to consider the integration of research on normative and healthy aspects of romantic relationships with the abusive relationship characteristics, but more work is still needed in this area. Specifically, a better understanding of the complex and dynamic nature of adolescent relationships and how this impacts the development of violence in relationships over time continues to be an area that is not well developed. Research is needed that examines in detail the context in which abuse occurs (e.g., how and under what conditions youth use violence in relationships), the meaning of such violence, and how this meaning may be impacted by factors such as gender, culture, and the dynamics of the relationships themselves. Finally, it is imperative that practice- and policy-relevant research be disseminated and used by practitioners in the field. In order to do this effectively, NIJ will need to continue in its efforts to develop a better understanding of how to translate the research and conduct research on program and policy implementation.
Footnotes
Authors’ Note
The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.