The Violence Pandemic: How Public Health Can Help Bring it Under Control

"Many would argue that violence is an inevitable part of the human condition, but public health advocates challenge that view. 'Violence is a preventable problem,' says Etienne Krug, director of the violence and injury prevention program at the World Health Organization (WHO). 'It is amenable to the tools we use to address all public health problems, and we need to start using them more than we have already to address the problem.' To rally a growing public health response to violence, Krug and a team of experts from around the world produced the World Report on Violence and Health [* please see below for access options] in 2002....It reports that an estimated 1.6 million people worldwide died as a result of violence in 2000. That is fewer than the 3 million deaths due to AIDS but greater than the 1.3 million deaths from traffic accidents during the same year....Of all violent deaths in 2000, nearly half were suicides, just under a third were homicides and only a fifth were directly related to war. 'This is quite different from the picture we get from the media, where the focus is on organized forms of violence,' says Krug. 'Suicides and homicides represent a much bigger proportion of fatal violence around the world.'"

According to this article, published in 2003 by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the WHO figures (and others that trace violent deaths by region, gender, and the like) are only a part of the picture. While noteworthy in isolation, they represent a small portion of the burden of violence, which includes a number of unreported deaths, injuries due to sexual abuse, and economic/psychological consequences of violence.

In this context, questions arise that may be relevant to public health communicators interested in what causes violence and what kinds of action might be taken to prevent it. This report presents questions studies have examined, including: What makes individuals behave violently? Which community and societal influences can be identified as helpful or hurtful? What are the key risk factors? Practitioners mobilised by such questions have explored anti-violence strategies such as preschool enrichment programmes that teach young children that violence is not the only response to stress, as well as programmes designed to improve parenting skills in high-risk families.

Some of these communication efforts have proven to be successful (e.g., the "healthy communities" approach, which promotes better outdoor lighting, more parks and recreation centres, and organised activities for youth). However, this paper concludes that "tackling violence cannot be left to the public health community alone. Because its causes are so complex and varied, effective action to reduce violence must come from many sectors and many levels." In that spirit, the WHO report makes the following recommendations for effective action to reduce violence:

1. "Develop, implement and monitor national action plans for violence prevention.
2. Improve data collection on violence.
3. Support research on the causes, impact and prevention of violence.
4. Promote primary prevention responses.
5. Strengthen responses for victims of violence.
6. Integrate prevention into social and educational policies; promote gender and social equality.
7. Increase collaboration and information exchange on violence prevention.
8. Promote and monitor compliance with international human rights laws and treaties.
9. Seek international responses to the global arms and drug trades."

* Editor's Note: Click here to download WHO's 2002 World Report on Violence and Health in full or chapter-by-chapter [PDF format] in English, French, or Russian. (A PDF summary may be downloaded in Arabic, English, French, German, and Spanish; a PDF abstract is available in English, French, and Spanish).

Click here for this resource on the PAHO website (English language).

Click here for this resource on the PAHO website (Spanish language).