James A. Mercy

The world report on violence and health

In 1996, the World Health Assembly declared violence a major public health issue. To follow up on this resolution, on Oct 3 this year, WHO released the first World Report on Violence and Health. The report analyses different types of violence including child abuse and neglect, youth violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, elder abuse, self-directed violence, and collective violence. For all these types of violence, the report explores the magnitude of the health and social effects, the risk and protective factors, and the types of prevention efforts that have been initiated. The launch of the report will be followed by a 1-year Global Campaign on Violence Prevention, focusing on implementation of the recommendations. This article summarises some of the main points of the world report.

The economic burden of child maltreatment in the United States and implications for prevention

OBJECTIVES To present new estimates of the average lifetime costs per child maltreatment victim and aggregate lifetime costs for all new child maltreatment cases incurred in 2008 using an incidence-based approach. METHODS This study used the best available secondary data to develop cost per case estimates. For each cost category, the paper used attributable costs whenever possible. For those categories that attributable cost data were not available, costs were estimated as the product of incremental effect of child maltreatment on a specific outcome multiplied by the estimated cost associated with that outcome. The estimate of the aggregate lifetime cost of child maltreatment in 2008 was obtained by multiplying per-victim lifetime cost estimates by the estimated cases of new child maltreatment in 2008. RESULTS The estimated average lifetime cost per victim of nonfatal child maltreatment is

Men, women, and murder : gender-specific differences in rates of fatal violence and victimization

210,012 in 2010 dollars, including

Fatal violence among spouses in the United States, 1976-85.

32,648 in childhood health care costs;

Marital status and the risk of suicide

10,530 in adult medical costs;

Alcohol use and interpersonal violence: Alcohol detected in homicide victims

144,360 in productivity losses;

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms and Child Maltreatment: A Population-Based Study

7,728 in child welfare costs;

Sexual violence and its health consequences for female children in Swaziland: a cluster survey study

6,747 in criminal justice costs; and

CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System: background and methodology

7,999 in special education costs. The estimated average lifetime cost per death is

Do Laws Restricting Access to Firearms by Domestic Violence Offenders Prevent Intimate Partner Homicide

1,272,900, including