Violence is defined by the World Health Organization as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against a person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation. This definition associates intentionality with the committing of the act itself, irrespective of the outcome it produces.
Globally, violence takes the lives of more than 1.5 million people annually: just over 50% due to suicide, some 35% due to homicide, and just over 12% as a direct result of war or some other form of conflict. For each single death due to violence, there are dozens of hospitalizations, hundreds of emergency department visits, and thousands of doctors' appointments. Furthermore, violence often has lifelong consequences for victims' physical and mental health and social functioning and can slow economic and social development.
Violence, however, is preventable. Evidence shows strong relationships between levels of violence and potentially modifiable factors such as concentrated poverty, income and gender inequality, the harmful use of alcohol, and the absence of safe, stable, and nurturing relationships between children and parents. Scientific research shows that strategies addressing the underlying causes of violence can be effective in preventing violence. Examples of scientifically credible strategies to prevent violence include nurse home-visiting and parenting education to prevent child maltreatment; life skills training for children ages 6–18 years; school-based programmes to address gender norms and attitudes; reducing alcohol availability and misuse through enactment and enforcement of liquor licensing laws, taxation and pricing; reducing access to guns and knives; and promoting gender equality by, for instance, supporting the economic empowerment of women.
Read more about Violence: Definition, Typology of Violence, Magnitude, Distribution and Consequences of Violence, Consequences and Costs, Causes of Violence, Psychology, Targeted Violence, Drugs, Law, War, Religious and Secular Ideology, Violence in The Media, Classification & Nomenclature
Other articles related to "violence":
... movement had been celebrating its May Day holiday since the 1890s and had seen none of the violence associated with the day's events in Europe. 1, 1919, the left mounted especially large demonstrations, and violence greeted the normally peaceful parades in Boston, New York, and Cleveland ... Cleveland, Ohio saw the worst violence ...
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... Violence must "have a low threat and be justified by context", sexual activity, nudity and drug use may only be "very discreetly implied", and coarse language must be "very mild and infrequent" ... Violence should be mild and infrequent, and drug use and nudity should be justified by context ... Sexual violence must be limited ...
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... of life as minorities within America, and an outlet to deal with violence and gang culture ... hip hop, as a means to draw teenagers out of gang life and violence ... vigorously opposed by conservatives because it romanticises violence, law-breaking, and gangs" ...
Famous quotes containing the word violence:
“Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings.”
—George F. Will (b. 1941)
“If Mr. Vincent Price were to be co-starred with Miss Bette Davis in a story by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe directed by Mr. Roger Corman, it could not fully express the pent-up violence and depravity of a single day in the life of the average family.”
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