Violence and public health

Violence and Public Health
Name
Institution
Abstract
The survivors of wars (soldiers) and natural disasters are not the only people prone to PTSD. Many of our young children, especially those of color living in the neighborhoods of associated with poverty, show the effects of unrelenting structural race and racism, violence in the streets, domestic instability and other adversities almost daily. And their symptoms look similar like post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). According to the movie (“Raising in America”) areas in Oakland and Philadelphia, brings the harrowing and terrifying stories of children experiencing trauma by violence and adversity. This makes them suffer from hyper-vigilance, impulse control nightmares and depression. But these children and young people, along with community organizations and providers like John Rich, are helping in creating a new path. They start by not inquiring what is wrong with the children but rather inquire what happened to the young people, as well as how the traumatized children and young people heal.
Keywords: violence, PTSD, poverty, traumatic, adversity

Question one
Other than violence, traumatic experiences also cause PTSD. Such experiences include hyper-vigilance, lack of trust as well as difficulty in concentrating in school work leading to suspension and sometimes expulsion from schools. Another cause of PTSD is race and racism. Children of color are common in the poor neighborhoods of the United States. Such children undergo bullying, isolation, harassment.

This eventually affects their mental and physical development.
Question two
According to Sleet et al. (2016), in his article injury and violence prevention. The purpose of the research was to prevent the unintentional injuries and violence and reduce their consequences on public health. The major problem identified was that violence in impoverished neighborhoods in the United States causes deaths, disabilities, poor mental health across age group 1 to 44 years. As intervention strategies, school-based programs that enhance proper communication skills among teenagers, family approaches that help parents to initiate monitoring activities. Also, policy and community approach to enhance safety and positive interactions among neighborhoods. The finding from Sleet et al. (2016) was that: more than one-third of violence victims are teenagers. On a daily basis, about thirteen young people are murdered. As a recommendation, violence among the youths can be prevented when teenagers use nonviolent means to resolve conflicts. Families and communities should set appropriate rules that monitor children behavior and enhance relationships. Also, according to Beaglehole et al. (2004), he aimed at the role of public health in preventing violence among the youths and children. The problem identified was that the general public plays an insignificant role in managing violence. The paper recommended good leadership, partnership, collaboration as well as political engagements and advocacy.
Question three
One of the anti-violence policy from the federal government to prevent violence in childhood is the Child abuse treatment and prevention act. The policies need to change in a way that it addresses the nature of violence today and enhance child protection. The state policy includes the policies pertaining the witnessing of domestic violence. (Mathews et al. 2015). The policies should address the situation where the child is exposed to harm, threats or abuse. The local policy such as the domestic violence policy should focus on addressing issues of domestic violence that majorly affects children during early stages of development.
Question four
The first step in minimizing violence is understanding the people involved, where the violence frequently occurs and how often they occur. In this case, the people involved are teenagers and young children living in impoverished neighborhoods where violence is a common occurrence. Also, the public health approach involves analyzing the number of children violence based activities, their behaviors, occurrence of injuries as well as deaths. This data and information provide insights on how frequent the violence happens, where it happens and the victims of the violence (teenage group). The information providing evidence for teenage violence can be obtained from police records, medical files, hospital records, charts and registries as well as the population-based survey.
The other step of public health approach to preventing violence through this policy is to identify the risk factors and the protective factors. These are factors that put the children and the young people to be at risk of experiencing violence. For instance, child abuse, inadequate family support, sexual abuse, accidents, threats, physical assaults among others. These factors help in the identification of the potential preventive efforts and measures that need to be applied. The risk factors indicate that children will, at one point, experience trauma and violent behaviors when frequently and continuously expose to such factors. Protective factors aim at decreasing the likelihood of children becoming victims of violence brought about by the risk factors.
The other step is to develop the prevention strategies to minimize violence exposure by children and young people. The programs can be designed from an evidence-based approach such as community data and surveys, community-based programs and other stakeholder participation. The community-based programs can be implemented and evaluated to examine their effectiveness.
The other step of enhancing public health approach to violence protection is the widespread adoption of the programs and policies. When proven effective, the programs, as well as the policies, need to be adopted and implemented widely and broadly. The community should evaluate and monitor the effectiveness and the success of the programs and policies. This can be done through proper training, networking, evaluation and technical assistance.

References
Beaglehole R, Bonita R, Horton R, Adams, O, & McKee M. Public health in the new era. Improving health through collective action. Lancet. 363(9426) pp.20-46. 2004
California Newsreel (producer). 2015. Episode 4: Wounded Places. In The Raising of
America. 42 minutes.
Mathews, B., L., Scott, D. (2015). Child welfare policy and the practice of children’s exposure to
Domestic violence. 3(36) pp. 210–216
Sleet, D., Baldwin, G., Marr A., Patterson, S., Morrison C. (2016). History of Injury and
Violence as Public Health Problem. Journal of Safety Research 43(4):233-248.