Recommended reading

This comprehensive report provides an extensive review of the problem of violence, identifying it as a global public health issue. It describes what violence is, examines the origins of violence from the perspective of an ecological model, and looks at who it affects and what can be done about it. One-hundred and sixty experts from around the world contributed to this publication. A call is made, in terms of a response to violence, for public health systems to play a much wider and more comprehensive role in violence prevention. This response should be contingent evidence-based research of a collaborative nature. Central to this aproach would be the input of a wide range of professional expertise drawing on medicine, epidemiology and psychology, sociology, criminology, education and economics. The report includes the following chapters: "Youth Violence", "Child Abuse and Neglect by Parents and Other Caregivers", "Violence by Intimate Partners", "Abuse of the Elderly", "Sexual Violence", "Self-Directed Violence", and "Collective Violence". A typology of violence is used that divides violent behaviour into categories according to who has committed the act, who it affects, and to what kind of violence they have been subjected. Statistics and research findings from New Zealand-based studies are reported on. Nine recommendations for action are made and it is suggested that they be applied with flexibility and a thorough understanding of local conditions and capacities. The nine recommendations are that member states: create, implement and monitor a national action plan for violence prevention; enhance capacity for collecting data on violence; define priorities for, and support research on, the causes, consequences, costs, and prevention of violence; promote primary prevention responses; strengthen responses for victims of violence; integrate violence prevention into social and educational policies, and thereby promote gender and social equality; increase collaboration and exchange of information on violence prevention; promote and monitor adherence to international treaties, laws and other mechanisms to protect human rights; and seek practical, internationally agreed responses to the global drugs and arms trades.