Youth Violence Preventation and the Role of the Physician

Division of Research, Evaluation and Grants

Youth violence is a major public health problem facing every community in the nation today. Whether as victims, witnesses or perpetrators of violence, the consequences of violence are serious, and health professionals have an integral role to play in the prevention of youth violence. Through daily opportunities with patients and their families, health professionals can incorporate preventive education, screening for risk and linkages to necessary intervention and follow-up services. Given appropriate training, education and resources, health professionals can actively be involved in violence prevention through identification and management of violence-related issues, and act as an effective catalysts for healthier child development through increasing awareness about conflict resolution and anger management, appropriate disciplining methods, media exposure, firearm safety and more.

Our main goal for this website is to provide the health professional and/or community member, with the essential resources and tools to fully participate in the local and national efforts to prevent youth and other forms of violence in our society. In the "Resources for the Professional" section, links are provided for local, state and national resource centers and organizations to assist you in locating resources and research information and tools essential to increasing violence prevention and intervention efforts. We have provided links that will also direct you to resources and research in address the underlying causes of youth violence, dating violence, bullying, firearm violence, substance abuse, behavioral problems and more. There is another part of this section, which provides links to sites containing patient education and training guides to increase knowledge, skills and comfort with violence-related issues for the professional and patient. In the "Resources for youth and families" section, we provide links for children, adolescents and adults to access information on prevention and intervention issues, while also addressing the challenges that youth violence presents in our families, schools and communities. They are links to youth violence prevention programs, and we feature an extensive collection of links to other sites that offer tools and technical assistance to prevent violence, as well as links to access basic information on healthy living and healthy development. The last section provides links to recommended reading for the professional, youth and/or family member and community member, who is interested in learning more about youth violence prevention.A link may appear in more than one category.

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