Brief report on a systematic review of youth violence prevention through media campaigns: Does the limited yield of strong evidence imply methodological challenges or absence of effect?

Background: We present a brief report on a systematic review which identified, assessed and synthesized the existing evidence of the effectiveness of media campaigns in reducing youth violence.

Methods: Search strategies made use of terms for youth, violence and a range of terms relating to the intervention. An array of academic databases and websites were searched.

Results: Although media campaigns to reduce violence are widespread, only six studies met the inclusion criteria. There is little strong evidence to support a direct link between media campaigns and a reduction in youth violence. Several studies measure proxies for violence such as empathy or opinions related to violence, but the link between these measures and violence perpetration is unclear. Nonetheless, some evidence suggests that a targeted and context-specific campaign, especially when combined with other measures, can reduce violence. However, such campaigns are less cost-effective to replicate over large populations than generalised campaigns.

Conclusions: It is unclear whether the paucity of evidence represents a null effect or methodological challenges with evaluating media campaigns. Future studies need to be carefully planned to accommodate for methodological difficulties as well as to identify the specific elements of campaigns that work, especially in lower and middle income countries.