Ebony Magazine: Anti-Gang Programs Approach Violence As a Disease. YA’s Executive Director Featured.

Posted: November 28, 2015

EBONY MAGAZINE

During one of the presentations at this year’s American Public Health Association conference, researchers and activists gathered to discuss violence as a contagion. They argued that violence requires the same public health approaches that are used to fight diseases. Youth ALIVE! agrees. Their approachebonymagazine to combating violence was featured in the November 2015 issue of Ebony magazine.

Anti-Gang Programs Approach Violence As A Disease
Ebony, November 2015
By Naija Parker

Read the full story online.

 

Excerpt:

Cancer. Diabetes. AIDS. Lupus. Hypertension. Violence.

Most would think the last item mentioned above is unlike the others. Doctors, however, believe violence is a disease, too, and it should be amongst the rest addressed by the public health system.

During one of the presentations at this year’s American Public Health Association conference, researchers and activists gathered to discuss violence as a contagion. According to them, the patterns of criminal activities seen across the country are similar to those of the infectious illnesses that plague society.

So combat it, they say, violence requires the same public health approaches that are used to fight diseases.

Anne Marks runs Youth Alive. It’s a violence prevention program in Oakland, CA that began with its volunteers meeting victims of violence in the emergency rooms in an effort to prevent future occurrences of trauma.
Her program provides long-term solutions by supplying crisis response and support to families, organizing workshops and advocating for policies that reduce violence.

The National Network of Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Programs, which Marks co-founded, helps identify and develop other institutions such as hers. Why meet in medical centers?

According to the Journal of Adolescent Health, 44 percent of victims will return to hospitals as a result of another violent incident within five years, while 20 percent will die from it.

“It’s staggering. Prior victimization is the single most robust predictor of future victimization, so the goal is to promote positive alternatives for violence to halt retaliation, re-injury and arrest,” Marks says. “We know that hurt people hurt people but it’s also important to remember that healed people heal people.”

That’s why her system not only nurses the immediate physical needs but also the environmental and psychological ones such as posttraumatic stress disorder.

“PTSD is common. Victims come home to same home they were injured in with the same bullets holes in the door. There’s no treatment for them, so it’s a really different phenomenon,” she says.

Patients are broken as a result of the violence, which can negatively affect their reactions to it. Marks says sufferers can begin carrying weapons, joining gangs, missing school or work and sleeping less to feel safer.

John Rich, a professor at the Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health, explains the harmful responses with biology.

“In traumatic situations, you’re going to feel your heart beat faster, you’re going to sweat, the hairs are going to stand up on your neck and you’re going to start breathing heavier…We know this as the fight or flight system, which prepares us to defend ourselves against real and perceived danger,” he says.

“Chronic stress can leave that system slightly on when it ought to be off. Therefore, all of the chemicals like cortisol remain in the body, somewhat invading the organs, which is not a good thing.”

Organizations such as Cure Violence and Youth Alive recognize this but does the government?

Read the full story online.