About the Evidence Base

The Violence Prevention Evidence Base brings together abstracts and information from published studies that have measured the effectiveness of interventions to prevent violence. Studies included in the searchable evidence base have been selected following a systematic review of academic literature. This review process currently occurs biannually. A full review methodology can be made available upon request.

To be included in the evidence base, studies must meet the following criteria:

• Focus on primary prevention (i.e. preventing new acts of violence from occurring)
• Demonstrate a quantifiable impact on violence
  • Studies which focus solely on screening tools and knowledge change related to violence are therefore currently excluded. Studies which look at violence risk factors are included, so long as addressing violence prevention is one of the study's main objectives
• Be published in peer reviewed journals, from 1997 onwards
  • NB. Some studies published prior to 1997 have been included in the evidence base if they are related methodologically to other (more recent) included studies

The evidence base identifies a selection of studies that are considered to be of high methodological quality or rigour by highlighting the row in the tabular data. Studies are identified as highly rated if they receive from two independent reviewers no weak ratings for the criteria set by the quality assessment tool¹. If you are aware of any studies that you believe meet the above criteria, but that are not currently included in the database, we would be very grateful to receive details of these. To suggest relevant studies, or for any questions about the evidence base, please contact us at prevent.violence@ljmu.ac.uk

¹ The quality assessment tool used for the systematic review is available HERE - Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP), McMasters University; Canada.