R -- Mental Health Effect of Internet Mediated Violence on Children

This synopsis is cancelled in its entirety. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is seeking small businesses capable of proposing on a firm-fixed price bases with a one (1) year period of performance beginning September 30, 2007 under NAICS 546190 in accordance with FAR Part 13 Simplified Acquisition Procedures. The title of this project is Mental Health Effects of Internet- Mediated Violence on Children. The date specified for receipt of quotes will be 5 days after the issue date of the Request for Quote 2007-Q-10089 which is anticipated to be issued on August 31, 2007. All responsible small businesses may respond to this notice and provide their experience and information on similar contracts performed by emailing Thaddeus Rollins at tnr6@cdc.gov. I. BACKGROUND AND NEED Since the 1950s, researchers have been concerned about the effect media violence has on youth behavior and development. A 1972 US Surgeon Generals report voiced this concern to the scientific community. The 1980s and 1990s were marked with laboratory and field experiments attempting to parse out the role movies, television, and video games played in aggressive attitudes and behaviors. Findings contributed to the 2002 US Surgeon General report on Youth Violence. Today, there is general agreement in the scientific community that viewing violence, at least for some children, increases aggressive attitudes, values, and behaviors. Even with this prolific research activity, gaps in our understanding of the relationship between media violence and aggressive behavior remain. First, despite substantial evidence of short-term effects of media violence on arousal, thoughts, and emotions, little research has considered the link with seriously violent or criminal behavior. Second, effects of media violence on aggressive behavior seem to be particularly pronounced for younger children; little research has considered the link for older children and adolescents. Third, with increased use of the Internet among young people, little is known about how exposure to violence on the Internet fit into our growing understanding of the effect of violent mediums. The Internet is fast becoming the telephone of the 21st century, with an estimated 97% of young people between the ages of 12 and 18 using online communication. Because almost all youth are now online, this access may have increased opportunities for children and youth to be exposed to violence. Websites such as hate pages that encourage discrimination of specific types of people, and those reporting real violence such as news websites have the potential to reinforce cognitive styles and orientations that support aggressive responding, thereby increasing the perpetration of seriously violent behavior. II. PURPOSE The purpose of this project is to collect and analyze data related to youth 10-15 exposed to media violence that will support and further the understanding of the co-occurrence of exposure to media violence and engaging in serious criminal and/or aggressive behavior. In addition to supporting the general management of this project (e.g., data cleaning, preparing data files, generating basic reports), the contractor will support conducting extensive and complex analyses on the longitudinal data (from years 1 and 2). III. SCOPE OF WORK The contractor will be responsible for media violence exposure data collection, statistical analyses and dissemination of findings from Media Violence data. IV. TASKS TO BE PERFORMED 1: Clean and analyze Year 2 media violence data. 2: Management and oversight of Year 3 Media Violence data collection V. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE September 30, 2007 to September 29, 2008 VI. DELIVERABLES 1: Media violence exposure data file for Year 2 of data collection by 1/31/08. 2: Summary report of Year 2 media violence exposure data by 4/30/08. 3: Raw data file of Year 3 data by 9/30/08.