Treating violence as a public health problem

doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7367.726

BMJ 2002;325:726-727 ( 5 October )

Editorials

Treating violence as a public health problem

The approach has advantages but diminishes the human rights perspective

News p 731

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In every country, to a greater or lesser extent, violence blights lives and undermines health. Acknowledging this, in 1996the 49th World Health Assembly adopted a resolution (WHA49.25)declaring violence a major and growing public health problem acrossthe world. The resolution ended by calling for a plan of actionfor progress towards a science based public health approach topreventing violence. The World Health Organization defines violenceas the intentional use of physical force or power, threatenedor actual, against oneself, another person, or a group or community,that either results in, or has a high likelihood of resultingin, injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.¹In 2000, an estimated 1.6 million people died as a result of violence.Many more suffered injury. Of the deaths, nearly half were suicides,almost a third were homicides $---$ of whom 57 000 were of children $---$ andabout a fifth were related to war. This . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

Shepherd, J., Reardon, D. C, Davies, P., Vimpani, G. V (2003). Violence as a public health problem. BMJ 326: 104-104 [Full text]

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