Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) youth experience disproportionately high rates of sexual violence. Logic models, or frameworks, that guide violence prevention programming are often not culturally specific and may not address the unique structural and social drivers of youth violence in AAPI communities.

In response, the University of Iowa’s Prevention Research Center for Rural Health (PRC-RH) and Monsoon established the Monsoon Rape Prevention Education Program Evaluation: an academic-community partnership that guided the participatory development of the culturally specific logic model and evaluation plan, for youth sexual violence prevention in AAPI communities.

The process of model adaptation began with a review of the organization’s documents, and the already established youth violence prevention program (YVPP). Interviews and focus group discussions with Monsoon and youth leaders illustrated the complexity of determinants of youth violence in the AAPI community. As Mira Yusef, Executive Director of Monsoon Asians and Pacific Islanders in Solidarity (Monsoon), noted: "It makes you kind of think about am I doing the right thing? What are the strengths? What are gaps? What are the barriers that we are seeing in order for us to make changes?”

Youth leaders described the YVPP from their perspective, but also described the impact the program had on them as youth leaders, leading to a decision to focus the programmatic logic model on the change in youth leaders. Evaluation research questions were then co-developed with Monsoon leadership, youth leaders, and academic partners. The research questions include evaluating the program’s implementation as well as program outcomes.

Centering the community throughout the creation and execution processes allows the program’s success to be measured by the change created from within. “The expertise is in community.” Dr. Rima Afifi, Director of the PRC-RH, emphasized. “The best case scenario is when universities can be in service to communities.”

To learn more, watch this video of Dr. Rima Aifi and Mira Yusef discussing the process of adapting their model and evaluation to AAPI youth; and read the published article here.