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We now know that harmful social policies, such as those that deny health care to some people, can generate structural violence and be far more harmful than any type of direct violence. A health professional who engages in public health promotion must thus consider the adverse effects of structural violence generated by bad policies. On this view, the dictum, "first, do no harm," can be interpreted as a mandate to protect patients from injustice. Health care professionals' responsibilities extend to motivating policies that prevent avoidable deaths and disabilities. As we exist within an ecology, we must each recognize our responsibility to care for one another and for the larger human community., (© 2018 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.)

The past several years have been a landmark moment for violence prevention, with renewed attention on the part of many international agencies, but especially the United Nations, with its adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development . The latter invites the world community to collaborate in an inclusive, long-ranging vision for the future, highlighting our interdependence and collective responsibility for humanity’s future. A growing awareness that preventing violence does not just reduce death and disability but promotes creativity, economic growth, and general well-being is at the heart of this “movement”. An integration not only of the major disciplines but of various practical approaches is timely, and for this to occur, we require a broader overview of our existing societal structures. In this context, this fifteen article series modeled after a Global Health Studies course entitled, “Violence: Causes and Cures,” reviews the mechanisms that society has used in an attempt to stem violence. The next two articles will briefly cover how, over the past few decades, health sectors have been instrumental in shifting the view of human violence from being a law and order issue to a preventable health problem. Public health paved the way for interdisciplinary research and multisectoral collaboration, providing a critical link between research and implementation. Demonstrating that violence prevention is possible, not as an article of faith but based on evidence, is perhaps one of the greatest achievements in humanity’s effort to deal with its own violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past several years have been a landmark moment for violence prevention, with renewed attention on the part of many international agencies, but especially the United Nations, with its adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development . The latter invites the world community to collaborate in an inclusive, long-ranging vision for the future, highlighting our interdependence and collective responsibility for humanity's future. A growing awareness that preventing violence does not just reduce death and disability but promotes creativity, economic growth, and general well-being is at the heart of this “movement”. An integration not only of the major disciplines but of various practical approaches is timely, and for this to occur, we require a broader overview of our existing societal structures. In this context, this fifteen article series modeled after a Global Health Studies course entitled, “Violence: Causes and Cures,” reviews the mechanisms that society has used in an attempt to stem violence. Following the article on public health, which has established that violence is preventable, this paper examines the approaches of global medicine, which begins with the local and human aspects of medical care. A model of compassion, altruism, respect, and encouragement is proposed for a person-centered, humanistic approach. Taking into account human suffering, principles of caregiving, cultural and religious sensitivity, and fostering of resilience and creativity is urgently needed in an increasingly globalizing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognizes violence as a threat to sustainability. To serve as a context, we provide an overview of the Sustainable Development Goals as they relate to violence prevention by including a summary of key documents informing violence prevention efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA) partners. After consultation with the United Nations (UN) Inter-Agency Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators (IAEG-SDG), we select specific targets and indicators, featuring them in a summary table. Using the diverse expertise of the authors, we assign attributes that characterize the focus and nature of these indicators. We hope that this will serve as a preliminary framework for understanding these accountability metrics. We include a brief analysis of the target indicators and how they relate to promising practices in violence prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many national and international institutions advocate approaching violence as a problem in public health and preventive medicine, in a manner similar to the way we address other disabling and life-threatening pathologies such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Prevention by a health model requires an ecological perspective. Previous work has found evidence that economic factors, including unemployment and relative poverty, as well as political culture and values, may affect violent death rates, including homicide and suicide. Nevertheless, wider political analyses of the effects that different regimes have on these variables have been notably absent, for understandable reasons given the sheer complexity of patterns of governance throughout the world. In view of the importance and scale of the problem, and implications of the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we feel it is nevertheless important to bring regime types into the conversation of factors that can influence violent death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Guest Editors introduce the Special Issue for the Journal of Public Health Policy on violence, health, and the 2030 Agenda. Emphasizing the importance of collaboration between scholars and practitioners, they outline the process of jointly imagining and designing the next generation of violence prevention strategies. They include representative works of members of the World Health Organization (WHO) Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA), including the World Bank, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Prevention Institute, the Danish Institute Against Torture, the University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Gender Violence and Health Centre, and the Yale University Law and Psychiatry Division, among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To establish global research priorities for interpersonal violence prevention using a systematic approach. Methods Research priorities were identified in a three-round process involving two surveys. In round 1, 95 global experts in violence prevention proposed research questions to be ranked in round 2. Questions were collated and organized according to the four-step public health approach to violence prevention. In round 2, 280 international experts ranked the importance of research in the four steps, and the various substeps, of the public health approach. In round 3, 131 international experts ranked the importance of detailed research questions on the public health step awarded the highest priority in round 2. Findings In round 2, "developing, implementing and evaluating interventions" was the step of the public health approach awarded the highest priority for four of the six types of violence considered (i.e. child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, armed violence and sexual violence) but not for youth violence or elder abuse. In contrast, "scaling up interventions and evaluating their cost-effectiveness" was ranked lowest for all types of violence. In round 3, research into "developing, implementing and evaluating interventions" that addressed parenting or laws to regulate the use of firearms was awarded the highest priority. The key limitations of the study were response and attrition rates among survey respondents. However, these rates were in line with similar priority-setting exercises. Conclusion These findings suggest it is premature to scale up violence prevention interventions. Developing and evaluating smaller-scale interventions should be the funding priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]