Definition of Violence (CDC)

Violence is the threatened or actual use of physical force or power against another person, against oneself, or against a group or community which either results in, or has a high likelihood of resulting in, injury, death, or deprivation.

Risk And Protective Factors

Understanding risk and protective factors allows us to identify areas of focus for preventing violence. While risk factors are not causes per se, reducing the prevalence of risk factors will help to reduce the total amount of violence in a community, and increasing the prevalence of protective factors will foster resiliency and afford the same result.

People may cluster risk and protective factors differently. The listing below is of commonly mentioned factors, as clustered by Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Larry Cohen, and other Harvard School of Public Health, Prevention Institute, and EDC staff. We will discuss risk and protective factors as operating at these concentric levels: individual, family, community, and the larger environment.

Some key risk factors for violence:

• Community deterioration, including businesses, schools, recreation, and low civic participation
• Social isolation and lack of connection to social institutions (such as schools and religious institutions)
• Bias and the isms
• The conditions that poverty and income inequality force some people to live under
• Media portrayals of violence
• Alcohol and other drugs
• Children's unsupervised access to firearms
• Absence of adult male role models
• Individual and family mental health factors, low sense of self-worth and control,
• Instability, neglect, inadequate supervision
• Personal victimization, including exposure to and witnessing acts of violence

Thinking about the risk factors leads to obvious conclusions about many of the protective factors which foster resiliency to violence.

Some key protective factors for violence:

• Organized community programs for youth and families
• Access to high-quality schools, committed school personnel, and a school environment that promotes violence prevention
• Community policing
• Broad civic participation in efforts like fixing deteriorating neighborhoods
• Mentors and role models
• Community control over decisions
• A feeling of 'community' in schools and neighborhoods and across generations
• Economic opportunity
• Adult family members who are nurturing, caring and responsible, and provide consistent, structured supervision
• Effective communication and problem solving skills within the family
• Individual experience of involvement, input and impact in family, school and community
• A sense of self worth and good self esteem