The Public Health approach to tackling serious youth violence

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What is meant by a public health approach to tackling violence?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) definition:

"A public health approach that “seeks to improve the health and safety of all individuals by addressing underlying risk factors that increase the likelihood that an individual will become a victim or a perpetrator of violence. By definition, public health aims to provide the maximum benefit for the largest number of people. Programmes for primary prevention of violence based on the public health approach are designed to expose a broad segment of a population to prevention measures and to reduce and prevent violence at a population-level.”

This approach aims to consider the underlying causes of the issue within a community, identify risk factors, and then take action to reduce incidents. By identifying the early indicators and risk factors of serious violence, this can help key agencies to implement the right interventions and divert individuals away from violent crime. Taking a public health approach to reducing violence recognises the necessity both of gaining an understanding of violence through evidence and of responding to the problem through carefully designed interventions. Robust evaluation of those interventions feeds back into our understanding of what works to reduce violence most effectively for the most amount of people
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Page last reviewed: 12/10/2021

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