Sustained Engagement in Violence Intervention Programs Beneficial

FRIDAY, Jan. 30, 2026 (HealthDay News) — For young adults who survived a shooting or stabbing, hospital-based violence intervention programs (HVIP) can improve long-term violence outcomes with intensive participant engagement, according to a study published online Jan. 27 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Jonathan Jay, Dr.P.H., J.D., from the Boston University School of Public Health, and colleagues examined the effects of the Boston Medical Center HVIP on future violence outcomes in a target trial emulation using observational data for young adults aged 16 to 34 years who survived a shooting or stabbing. Target trials were emulated for two treatment strategies: (1) any treatment, engaging with the HVIP within one month of injury; and (2) sustained treatment, initiating within one month and engaging more than half of the first eight weeks.

Overall, 1,328 patients met the inclusion criteria, and of these patients, 565 (42.5 percent) initiated within one month; 58 (10.2 percent) had sustained engagement. The researchers found that the estimated cumulative incidence of a combined measure of violent reinjury or violence perpetration was approximately equal between the treatment and control strategies at one, two, and three years in the any-treatment analysis. Treatment was associated with considerably lower cumulative incidence at one, two, and three years (4.5, 5.1, and 6.4 percent, respectively) compared with the control strategy (8.7, 12.3, and 14.3 percent, respectively) in the sustained engagement analysis, with corresponding risk reductions of 47.6, 58.5, and 55.3 percent.

“This result affirms the violence prevention potential of HVIPs and demonstrates the need for a new generation of HVIP research focused on effective implementation,” the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text