World Report on Violence and Health KRUG, E.G., DAHLBERG, L. L., MERCY, J. A., ZWI, A. and LOZANO, R. for the World Health Organization (Eds). (2002). World Health Organization, Geneva, 368 pp, Swiss Francs 30.00/US $27.00 ISBN 92-4-154561 5 (paperback).

✍ Scribed by Patricia Conway

• Book ID: 101773303
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 51 KB
• Volume: 14
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1052-9284
• DOI: 10.1002/casp.740

✦ Synopsis

main.cfm?p ¼ 0000000117 Nelson Mandela, in a foreword to this report, posits that the twentieth century will be remembered as a century marked by violence.

As people who grew up in that century it would be difficult for any of us to deny that violence is a reality we live with. We learn to adopt safety behaviours to cope with the fear of violence. We keep our kids within sight to protect them from abduction or sexual abuse. We avoid chastizing antisocial behaviour in others for fear of a violent response. We avoid walking past crowds of young people. Women do not walk alone in the dark. We do not feel safe. We feel we cannot trust people. We know about road rage, football hooliganism, religious and racially motivated attacks, battered babies, women and elderly people. We see campaigns against domestic violence, like zero tolerance.

A crude look at reported violence in the media validates our fear. One recent issue of a national newspaper reported on wife beating, serial rape, a murder, attempted murder, use of a date rate drug, clergy sexual abuse, refugee self harm, massacres in Rwanda, mass graves in Iraq and violence in the Middle East. We know that violence is a local and global problem.

The impact of all forms of violence on both physical and mental health is emphasized in the report. The cost of violence in the loss of 1.6 million lives annually and the provision of reactive services is staggering. On top of injuries and deaths, the wider outcomes of violence for individuals, communities and society are considered. The facts are devastating. As psychologists we work with these outcomes at all levels, albeit in different guises. People rarely use psychological input for problems with violence but for the outcomes: the anxiety, depression, fear of people or the world, relationship or sexual difficulties, ill-health, head injuries, drug or alcohol abuse. As a profession we are more than aware of the impact violence has on health, but what is our response? Too often with violence we tackle the symptoms rather than the cause.

Given that we know that violence is a problem, a report to raise awareness of the problem of violence could, therefore, seem futile. The merit of this report is in its reframing of violence from a criminal justice/human rights issue to that of a public health issue. By reframing violence as a public health issue the report forces us to broaden our thinking. A model for understanding violence is presented which considers cause, effect and risk factors at the individual, relational, community and societal levels. By placing violence in this wider context the model challenges the dominant individualistic views of violence as solely acts of perpetrator on victim. Factors such as environment, poverty, gender, policies, commerce and politics are considered.

The report explores these issues at length, using clear and compellingly frank writing, a sensible structure and information and is easy to digest with a complete absence of any feeling of wading through statistics. The report is broken down into nine chapters. The first introduces the argument that violence is a public health problem. Seven self-contained chapters follow on different forms of violence in a public health framework, covering youth violence, child abuse and neglect, violence by intimate partners, abuse of the elderly, sexual violence, self directed and collective violence. The final chapter gives recommendations for action on violence and appendices provide internet links to relevant organizations.