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A case for studying country regimes in the public health model of violence

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Abstract

Many national and international institutions advocate approaching violence as a problem in public health and preventive medicine, in a manner similar to the way we address other disabling and life-threatening pathologies such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Prevention by a health model requires an ecological perspective. Previous work has found evidence that economic factors, including unemployment and relative poverty, as well as political culture and values, may affect violent death rates, including homicide and suicide. Nevertheless, wider political analyses of the effects that different regimes have on these variables have been notably absent, for understandable reasons given the sheer complexity of patterns of governance throughout the world. In view of the importance and scale of the problem, and implications of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we feel it is nevertheless important to bring regime types into the conversation of factors that can influence violent death.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge Grace Lee for her valuable input on the conceptual base of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York University, New York, NY, USA

    James Gilligan

  2. Law and Psychiatry Division, Yale University, 34 Park Street, New Haven, CT, 06519, USA

    Bandy X. Lee, Shikha Garg & Audrey Luo

  3. University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA

    Morkeh Blay-Tofey

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  1. James Gilligan
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Correspondence to Bandy X. Lee.

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Gilligan, J., Lee, B.X., Garg, S. et al. A case for studying country regimes in the public health model of violence. J Public Health Pol 37 (Suppl 1), 133–144 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41271-016-0027-y

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