Data for Planning

The public health approach is data driven. Begin or fine tune your violence prevention program by defining the problem: Is this a problem of gang violence, school safety, community violence or multiple forms of violence that can be addressed through shared risk and protective factors? Then identify the risk and protective factors related to the problem. Find data on these factors for your city or zip code (See “Data Sources for Evaluation.”) Don’t forget the protective factors which are assets you can build on to lower risk. Look up stream at the social determinants of health affecting your area.

Next select strategies based on the factors related to the type of violence occurring in your focus area. See “Our Programs” for strategies implemented in Salinas CA or select programs from the internet sources listed at the bottom of that page. Check that your selection of strategies influences the problem at multiple levels of the Social-Ecological Model.

Data Sources for Evaluation

Getting consistent data for tracking your progress can be a challenge. Much of the data for the Salinas Violence Reduction Strategic Plan is pulled from the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS). Look at CHKS school district reports from districts throughout California. The CHKS data is similar to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), conducted in other States.

Explore the census! American Fact Finder-Community Facts is the easiest place to start. Begin by entering a state, county, city, or zip code and press GO. In the box to the left, pick a topic and see a fast fact in the box to the right, as well as other tables with more details. If you want to track changes in a topic over time, click on individual years in the small box to the left of the more detailed table. Income, employment, education and poverty are among the dozens of topics related to violence prevention that are available in the census.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report allows you to build simple tables using your local police department data. Or you can create a graph tracking local crime, from 1985 to the most recent year available. Then calculate the local crime rate with population data from American FactFinder page of the U. S. Census. The California Office of the Attorney General also provides more detailed crime data at the city, county and state levels.