Public Health Approach Essay

The Public Health Approach to Violence Prevention attacks violence as a public health problem and addresses it as a concern for the entire population. This concept is designed to help the masses and not a small insignificant group of people. With the public health approach, they can utilize several fields such as medicine, epidemiology, sociology, psychology, criminology, education, and economics. The model receives input from professionals in health, education, social services, justice and the private sector. This broad scope of individuals will provide an unbiased, three hundred and sixty degree perspective of the problem that affects everyone. The public health approach is a four-step procedure, with its origin in the scientific method (Dahlberg & Krug, 2002). The first step of the process is defining the problem the who, what, when, where, and how as it is related to preventing violence. Which is analyzing the data associated with violence- related actions, injuries, and deaths? The data will be obtained through police reports, the medical examiner's, hospital charts and population-based surveys. The next step in the model is to identify the risk and protective factors. The next step in the process is to recognize what increases the chances of becoming a victim or offender. Then establish what traits aid an individual in being proactive and not becoming a victim. The third step is creating a test or preventative methods. It refers to reaching out to the community and institutions that play a significant role in the social structure of neighborhood to design preventative programs. It is evidence based approach using the data retrieved from surveys, assessments, and stakeholder interviews. Now once the programs have proven to work,

Violence: a global public health problem. In: Krug E, Dahlberg LL, Mercy JA, Zwi AB, Lozano R, eds. World Report on Violence and Health. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization;