[Music]
did anyone ever tell you that you had
the power to change the world when you
were young think about it for a moment
what did that mean to you did it mean
you would be a superhero whose fly and
save people from villains or did it mean
you would be a firefighter working all
hours of the day and night to prevent
tragic events and disasters maybe you
were going to be a scientist or an
astronaut and changed the world through
discovery we all thought about how we'd
change the world when we were young but
now that we're older changing the world
may mean something completely different
than it did when we were kids still one
thing certain we all have the power to
change the world even if we're not
wearing capes fighting fires or
exploring space no matter how old we are
or where we live we have the power to
change our communities by keeping them
free from violence so that our children
can grow up in safe and healthy
environments this training will take you
on a journey through all the places
where you have the power to impart
positive change and prevent violence
from happening there's a lot to cover so
let's get started the truth is that
violence in all of its forms is far too
common in our homes in our schools and
our workplaces and in our communities
violence is more than just the physical
injuries we see on the outside it
affects us on the inside too with
emotional and psychological scars that
can last a lifetime violence is also a
costly problem and places a terrible
burden on our society combined all of
these factors make up what we call the
burden of violence
burden can be defined by mortality or
morbidity looking at the incidence and
prevalence of disease and economic
burden is another component of measuring
burden mortality means death we measure
mortality attributable to violence by
Counting the number of homicides and
suicides resulting from violent actions
morbidity in this context refers to
injuries and disease associated with
violence these injuries and diseases can
have both short term and long term
consequences that affect a person's
health and as we just mentioned violence
also takes a tremendous toll on the
economy known as economic burden
economic burden is measured through
direct and indirect costs like expenses
associated with medical and mental
health care absenteeism and lost
productivity the breakdown of community
infrastructure decline in property
values and disruption of social services
are other examples of the economic
burden associated with violence when you
break that arm because of the violent
act you may have to stay home from work
for a week and when you stay home from
work for a week it impacts your employer
in an indirect way it may impact your
pay it you know if it's a child that's
been that's a victim of violence the
child may lose education for the time
where they're not at school and so we
consider those the economic costs and is
a much broader and more significant
impact on violence failure to address
violence when it occurs it leads to
economic disinvestment deterioration of
neighborhoods and many other effects
like that even if you aren't a victim of
violent effects the quality of life in
your neighborhood one thing we're
finding for example is that people live
in neighborhoods at high rates of
violence or as likely to go out and
exercise owners willing to go out into
their neighborhood and enjoy the parks
and the
and the other facilities that may be
around them the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention also referred to
as CDC has been working to prevent
violence since the late 1970s CDC
officially established the division of
violence prevention within the National
Center for injury prevention and control
in 1993 we have a vision at CDC of
creating a society where people live a
better quality of life live a healthier
life because violence is not a part of
their life one of the things we CDC
found when I first got involved in the
field of violence prevention was that
nobody was focused on trying to prevent
violence before it occurs we used to
look at vials solely as a crime or
medical issue our major task at that
time in our history was that convinced
people that violence was indeed a health
problem that was 2530 years ago that's
changed by looking at violence through a
public health lens rather than a
criminal justice one we are able to take
a universal approach toward identifying
risk and protective factors and
implementing preventive measures
ultimately we don't only want to bring
perpetrators to justice we want to
prevent violence from happening in the
first place we'll explore this concept
further a little later and what public
health proves is a really a new way of
looking at it how can we prevent these
events from occurring in the first place
so we don't have to spend all that money
time and effort in reacting to the
problem after it occurs at CDC we're
focused on the the primary prevention of
violence which is preventing violence
before it happens and that's our role
that's our primary focus and niche and
it's a very important one in a gap that
we're filling we're in this because we
want to create better quality of life
for people in this country and around
the world we study the range of
different types of violence from child
maltreatment youth violence intimate
partner violence sexual violence as well
as suicidal behavior exposure to
violence particularly types of violence
such as child maltreatment
intimate-partner violence are risk
factors for depression for anxiety
disorders for smoking for drug
substitutes for obesity all things that
contribute in turn to some of the
leading causes of death for all
Americans such as heart disease and
cancer