Strengthening violence prevention using innovative and interdisciplinary intervention modelling (In3): integrating public health, crime science, and complexity science

This interdisciplinary project will integrate public health and crime science frameworks with complexity science methods to advance new approaches to evidence-based violence prevention research. It will combine realist approaches, empirical mixed methods, Bayesian causal models, and advanced social simulation techniques to identify intervention causal mechanisms and dynamics in silico. These empirically-based models will inform human trafficking prevention while demonstrating the profound capabilities of these methodologies for all violence prevention research. In3 will advance realist complexity approaches to address how interventions work, for whom, in which contexts, and why. In3 integrates three primary aims:

- Empirical discovery: identify and interrogate intervention causal mechanisms for primary prevention of trafficking and tertiary prevention of mental ill-health among survivors in the UK.

- Theory development and methodological innovation: adapt complementary interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks and complexity-appropriate methods for violence prevention and response research.

- Capacity building: forge new interdisciplinary links between public health, crime science and complexity science approaches to violence research.

Outputs will include key insights and recommendations for those who develop and implement UK human trafficking interventions, novel interdisciplinary violence prevention theoretical frameworks, new techniques for integrating causal inference and simulation methods for intervention research, and inclusive training materials on the theoretical and methodological developments for violence researchers.