Young People and Violence

Violence is one of the leading causes of adolescent morbidity and mortality around the world. Young people are disproportionately represented among both the perpetrators and victims of violence. There are multiple factors within the contexts in which young people live, their families, schools, peer groups, neighborhoods, and sociopolitical environments that predispose to and buffer against violence. Likewise, there are multiple preventive strategies that effectively address these factors and reduce violence involvement and injury. Youth violence can be prevented by applying science-based public health approaches to defining the problem, determining root causes, correlates, and modifiable risk and resilience factors, and designing, implementing, evaluating, disseminating, and sustaining effective interventions.