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Perspectives
in Health
Magazine

Violence: A Growing Public Health Problem

Washington, DC, January 16, 2004 (PAHO)—Violence has become one of the leading causes of death and a growing public health problem in the Americas and other regions of the world, according to a publication of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

However, public health advocates argue that violence is in large part a preventable problem.

Violence, which now claims the lives of more than a million people every year around the globe, is the subject of the cover story of the latest edition of Perspective in Health, the magazine of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The article analyzes the violence pandemic and how it affects the people and countries of the Americas.

Globally, the article states, nearly 4,400 people died every day because of violence in 2002. Moreover, this rate of violence appears to be increasing in many places where it is high.

To rally a growing public health response to violence, a group of experts from around the world drafted the World Report on Violence and Health in 2002 - the first such global survey of its kind.

The articles makes clear that the panorama of global health presented in the report is at odds with some commonly held assumptions. Nearly half of the violent deaths recorded in 2002 were suicides. Less than one-third were homicides and only one-fifth were directly linked to wars.

"This is quite different from the picture we get from the media, where the focus is on organized forms of violence," says Etienne Krug, director of the violence and injury prevention program at the World Health Organization (WHO).

The global report mentioned in the Perspectives in Health cover story shows that patterns of violence vary across regions and countries. The vast majority of violent deaths take place in low- to middle-income countries, with rates per 100,000 double those of high-income countries.

In most of WHO's regions around the world, suicides outnumber homicides -- in Europe, for example, by more than 2 to 1 and in the Western Pacific by as much as 7 to 1. By contrast, in both Africa and the Americas there are nearly three homicides for every suicide.

There are multiple public health responses. Among the most successful ones are the efforts to promote anger management, such as pre-school enrichment programs that teach young children that violence is not the only response to stress. It also includes programs that work with children who are victims of family violence and try to help prevent those children from becoming adults who themselves perpetrate violence.

The report makes nine recommendations for effective action to reduce violence:

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

PAHO was established in 1902 and is the world's oldest public health organization. PAHO works with all the countries of the Americas to improve the health and the quality of life of people of the Americas. It serves as the Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization (WHO).

PAHO Member States today include all 35 countries in the Americas. France, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are Participating States. Portugal and Spain are Observer States, and Puerto Rico is an Associate Member.