Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary. Held on April 30-May 1, 2012.

摘要

On April 30-May 1, 2012, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Forum on Global Violence Prevention convened a workshop to explore the contagious nature of violence (see Box 1-1 for the Statement of Task). Part of the Forums mandate is to engage in multisectoral, multidirectional dialogue that explores crosscutting, evidence-based approaches to violence prevention, and the Forum has convened four workshops to this point exploring various elements of violence prevention. The workshops are designed to examine such approaches from multiple perspectives and at multiple levels of society. In particular, the workshop on the contagion of violence focused on exploring the epidemiology of the contagion, describing possible processes and mechanisms by which violence is transmitted, examining how contextual factors mitigate or exacerbate the issue, and illuminating ways in which the contagion of violence might be interrupted. Speakers were invited to share the progress and outcomes of their work and to engage in a dialogue exploring the gaps and opportunities in the field. It should be noted that, while the infectious disease model was utilized as a framework for common language, not all speakers approached the issue of contagion literally. These differing approaches allowed for an emerging exploration of this issue, and one that might benefit from future exploration and research.