Why should we fight violence as we fight against "pandemics"?

We often say that incidents of violence have "spread like a plague" . And now there is data that leads us to take this expression literally.

New experiments have demonstrated the utility of treating violence in the same way as infectious diseases. Results have been encouraging in several regions, from Chicago, United States to Glasgow, Scotland.

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Christine Godol has witnessed hundreds or even of thousands of heads, At the turn of the millennium as a face surgeon in Glasgow.

Goodall remembers a young man who came to the hospital in the middle of the night and who had a long cut in his face, and how hard it was to tell him that his wound after healing would have an indelible mark. But what surprised her was her reaction when it did not seem very important to her.

The doctor says that she was stunned that night when her friends came to visit her: "I realized that I mocked, that their faces were all the same effect – and that he became one of those comrades! "

. On this day, the event did not go unnoticed as a sign of the spread of violence in his city.

According to a study published by the United Nations in 2005, Scotland tops the list of developed countries with regard to the highest levels of violence. The World Health Organization has published a study on crime statistics in 21 European countries. Glasgow is the "capital of murder" in Europe, with more than 1,000 people suffering from facial injuries each year.

Goodol says that despite doctors' efforts to properly sew these wounds, she wonders if that's a way to fix the problem at its roots.

Many human activities expose them to health risks. Like smoking, overeating and unprotected sex, even doctors have insisted that patients must change their behavior – such as quitting and dieting – so they do not have to deal with pulmonary edema and heart attack.

But when it comes to violence, the assumption is that it is a copy that has no way of changing it and that those who engage in such acts are irrevocable. Police and the criminal justice system have often focused on overcrowding

but police efforts are not enough: in 2005, Karen McClasky, a researcher from Strathclyde in Southwestern Ontario 39, Scotland, reported that the police had not succeeded. Karnokan, to demonstrate the causative factors. "Poverty, inequality and misperception of masculinity and excessive alcoholism have been among the factors that have led to violence in Scotland in particular, which exceeds the police," Will Linden said. , a staff member at the time.

Thus, the Linden-led anti-violence unit was established and since the beginning of 2005, the murder rate in Glasgow has dropped by about 60%, while the number of injuries in the face The hospitals in the city receive half of the current 500 infections a year, according to Godol.

The unit adopts a strategy that considers violence as a contagious infection and factors that make a person vulnerable to violence because she herself is a victim of violence before.

The notion of generalized violence explains why appeals and shootings in one region may be less important than in another region with similar social problems. "Although the world has never been without violence but is not considered an integral part of human activity, there are ways to prevent it and reduce its effects, as well as preventative and curative efforts. effective public health sectors to reduce complications.Pregnancy and occupational accidents, the fight against infectious diseases and the problems caused by food and water pollution in many parts of the world. "[19659005] But the idea of ​​"beating with an iron fist" is very popular among voters in different countries, making violence a treatable and preventable disease. For the anti-violence unit to reach its goal, Chicago must first be considered.

The story began in the 1980s and early 1990s when epidemiologist Gary Slatkin worked in Somalia with six doctors in 40 refugee camps, where a million people lived, where he was responsible for containing tuberculosis and cholera. Public health officials monitor outbreaks, thus tying to contain the spread of the disease by changing behaviors to prevent infection before extensive structural adjustments.

Diarrhea, for example, is widespread due to lack of sanitation and drinking water resources. While the important structural adjustments of the water system require a long period of time, it is possible to simultaneously save thousands of lives by giving doses of a dehydration solution.

Slatkin followed these steps to contain the outbreak of the disease among refugees from the Somali refugee camp, and later working on a Health Organization project to prevent the spread of AIDS . One person to the other. "

Slatkin says that changing behavior is much more effective than simply providing information to the target group. To change the behavior – by providing a solution to drought, avoiding water pollution or using condoms – people from the same group are needed to help the rest of the group, Somali refugees protected against tuberculosis and cholera. Healthy breastfeeding and prevention of diarrhea.

Working to prevent infection for more than a decade abroad, Slatkin returned to Chicago in the late 1990s to find himself faced with another homicide epidemic. in his homeland rather than in cholera and AIDS. • Monitor outbreaks of violence and data on shootings crimes in cities, and find consistency with their epidemiological trends abroad: "epidemic direction, outbreaks, disease surveillance and infections; More of them, as well as the violence leads to more

This was a completely different revelation of the anti-violence circles of the time, whose main objective was the law enforcement, the prevailing wisdom being that these people were "hopeless and we know how to treat them, they must be punished".

But Slatkin added that "it's a misconception of people who acquire their behavior from others and follow the path of others."

Chicago is defined as highly ethnically divided: many South African neighborhoods are inhabited by African Americans by more than 95%, and other areas have more than 95% of Mexican Americans. For years, neglect the state.

and sometimes murder rates are ten times the richest areas with a predominantly white population.

But Slatkin claims that violence is mainly due to behavior, and that perpetrators are a minority in their community and are usually young men.

He says that many lives can be saved by changing the behavior of the individuals and customs that prevail in these communities.

In 2000, he initiated a project in West Garfield, Chicago, to follow the steps recommended by the World Health Organization to reduce the spread of cholera, tuberculosis and AIDS.

In the first year of the pilot project, mortality rates dropped by 67%, and the project was then deployed to other regions. Whenever the project was implemented, murder rates dropped by 40%. The project then began to move to other cities.

Today, Slatkin, called "The Treatment of Violence," is active in 13 Chicago neighborhoods as well as in other projects in New York, Baltimore, and Los Angeles, not to mention the other. other countries outside the United States.

Although there are errors in reading the "treatment of violence", several academic studies have proven the effectiveness of the methods used by the organization in general, including a study in 2009 at Northwestern University. In which the program of the Organization.

In 2012, researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health investigated four neighborhoods in Baltimore that implemented the program and found fewer shootings and murders.

The results were also encouraging in other regions: in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the top five sectors implementing the program increased from 98 cases from January to May 2014 to just 12 during the same period in 2005 2015.

You can read the original article on BBC Future

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