Authors Deborah Prothrow-Stith and Howard R. Spivak— two prominent Boston-area public health officials who played leading roles in that city's turnaround— show that the key to Boston's success was creating an interdisciplinary citywide movement. The city's movement— made up of educators, community leaders, police officers, emergency room workers, activist teens, teen and family member survivors of violence, and many others— worked for more than ten years to implement multifaceted preventive programs that confronted each risk factor for youth violence, including

• Positive Role Models: Peer mentoring and teacher-training programs
• Healthy and Safe Communities: Youth centers, after-school programs, and other organized recreational activities
• Poverty: Economic stimulus policies to help reduce poverty in inner-city and rural areas
• Pro-Social Behaviors: Conflict resolution and violence prevention curricula in schools
• Domestic Violence: Home visitation programs and screening to protect kids from domestic violence
• Gun Buybacks: Reduction in the number of firearms on the streets

Deborah Prothrow-Stith, M.D., is associate dean for faculty development and professor of public health practice at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a physician working in inner-city hospitals and neighborhood clinics, she recognized violence as a significant public health issue. In 1987 she established the first office of violence prevention in a state department of public health while serving as commissioner for the Department of Public Health for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Howard R. Spivak, M.D., is chief of the division of general pediatrics and adolescent medicine and vice president for community health programs at New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. He is professor of pediatrics and community health at Tufts University School of Medicine and director of the Tufts University Center for Children. He cofounded the Boston Violence Prevention Program and is nationally recognized for his work in pediatrics and violence prevention.