Statement of Purpose Trauma recidivists are patients who present to an emergency room or trauma center on more than one occasion for different incidents of traumatic injury. One intervention that has shown promise in dealing with this issue has been the development of Hospital Based Violence Intervention Programs (HBVIP). The purpose of this presentation is to describe the implementation of a demonstration project to determine the impact of HBVIP services on victims of violent injury and to report baseline characteristics of the study sample.

Methods/Approach This demonstration project is a funded study, employing a randomized control trial research design to determine the effectiveness of an enhanced Hospital Based Violence Intervention model versus a treatment as usual model. The enhanced intervention provides case management whereas the treatment as usual intervention provides only a referral card.

Results A number of preliminary baseline data points will be presented and discussed, including but not limited to mechanism of injury, trauma type, whether surgery was needed, percentage of patients who present as trauma recidivists, levels of life satisfaction and other selected variables.

Conclusions The lack of evaluations on the effectiveness of HBVIPs has left significant gaps in our understanding on whether these programs in fact have an impact on rates of violent victimization. This on-going longitudinal study seeks to fill that gap by comparing a case-management led intervention to a referral only model.

Significance and Contributions to Injury and Violence Prevention Science Trauma recidivism and re-current violent injury are public health issues that have significant implications for the lives of victims, their families, and the overall community. The evaluation of HBVIPs are an important step in developing the evidence base for interventions that seek to mitigate rates of violent injury and recidivism.