Tier 3: Longitudinal Studies of Mediators, Moderators, and Multiple Social-Ecological Levels

This chapter provides a review based on the best studies focused on prevention and intervention for youth exposed to political violence and armed conflict. Prevention and intervention programs in this area have often been characterized by limitations of research design, severely limiting the interpretability of the findings with regard to program efficacy. In this chapter, we identify key elements for more cogent prevention and intervention research, including (a) the use of randomized clinical trials (RCTs), and intervention components are based on (b) well-articulated theory and (c) basic research findings regarding mediating and moderating mechanisms, and (d) the identification of intervention components at multiple levels of the social ecology. We provide and analysis of key findings, implications and strengths and limitations of the prevention and intervention research, and the extent to which extant research meet the criteria of translational research. In addition, Table 7.1 presents handy reference to a group of the best psychosocial prevention and intervention studies representing diverse geographic contexts and political conflicts, a range of independent and dependent variables, diverse youth populations, and multiple research groups. Moreover, the selected studies often included relatively large sample sizes, stronger sampling procedures, RCT designs, appropriate statistical analyses, and other evidence of methodological rigor or sophistication.