GLOBAL INNOVATIONS ON YOUTH VIOLENCE, SAFETY AND JUSTICE | EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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Public Health Approach Overview A public health approach treats violence like a health crisis, suggesting policymakers use scientific evidence to identify what causes violence and what interventions can stop it from spreading. This expands into a whole system approach when different organizations and professions come together to support youth and address the causes of violence holistically. KEY TAKEAWAYS •
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The most effective public health approaches are whole-system approaches, marked by encouraging collaboration across stakeholders from different agencies and organizations, conducting root cause and risk factor analysis, and identifying appropriate investments into prevention. Whole-system approaches link public safety, health, education, social services, and criminal justice systems to enable proactive interventions before a young person ever encounters the criminal justice system (see Case Study 1 | Glasgow and Inter-Agency Collaboration). Effective public health approaches share several basic components: cooperative and collaborative program design, shared and sustained funding, and reliable data (see Value of Public Health Approach). While not part of the health system or service, schools play a vital role in a public health approach to youth violence as they offer a means of early intervention (see Communities and Schools). Preventative measures—e.g., promoting critical thinking and using peer networks to break down and build resilience to extremist beliefs—are more successful than reactive interventions when combating extremist ideologies (see Combating Extremism). A public health approach both requires mutual respect and trust between communities and those in positions of power, including teachers, administrators, and police officers— but over-policing should be avoided, and local contexts fully understood (see Trust, Police, and Community Safety). A public health approach recognizes the links between the social determinants of health such as social disadvantage and discrimination, and social deprivation, violence, crime and trauma, and seeks to support communities accordingly (see Social Determinants of Violence and Trauma). Experience of domestic violence and substance abuse can both be indicators of future propensity for violence (see Domestic Violence and Substance Use Disorders).
