Abstract
Many inequities exist in serving and supporting Black survivors of violent crime. A key question in reducing inequities in care after victimization is whether police first responders and other formal system providers identify the victim as an “offender” and/or someone who is “undeserving” of supports. These labels and associated biases can directly reduce access to supports through a variety of mechanisms that include police withholding information about one’s rights as a victim, among other direct and indirect barriers to social and health services. Unaddressed financial, mental, and physical health consequences of victimization contribute to poorer health outcomes later in life. This paper seeks to bring together the extant research on help-seeking, discrimination in criminal legal system functioning, and barriers to victim services by synthesizing these discrete threads into a theoretically and empirically informed conceptual model that captures the range of factors that shape Black Americans’ decision to report their victimization to the police and subsequent help-seeking. Qualitative and quantitative data from a purposive sample of 91 Black victims of community violence is used to ground the developing model. The conceptual model can help lay the foundation for research that seeks to remedy the marked mismatch between the prevalence of violent victimization and help-seeking among Black Americans. Research findings can be applied to guide policies and programming to reduce inequities in care for victims of violence.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the dedicated researchers who helped collect the data and code the interviews—Hannah J. Klein, Courtney S. Harding, Juwan Z. Bennett, Verishia Coaxum, and Leah Hamilton, as well as the Cure Violence Philadelphia outreach workers who assisted with recruitment.
Funding
The data collected for this study was conducted under grant number 2016-V3-GX-0009 from the National Institute of Justice and Office for Victims of Crime. The points of view or opinions do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of NIJ or OVC.
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All study research protocols were reviewed and approved by the Temple University Institutional Review Board. The study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. All participants provided written consent to participate.
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Roman, C.G. A Conceptual Model of Help-Seeking by Black Americans After Violent Injury: Implications for Reducing Inequities in Access to Care. Prev Sci 25, 95–107 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-022-01429-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-022-01429-6