The Role of Social Sciences in Advancing a Public Health Approach to Violence
Date
2023-03-02
Authors
Brodie, Nechama
Bowman, Brett
Ncube, Vuyolwethu
Day, Sarah
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Handbook of Social Sciences and Global Public Health
Abstract
The public health approach maintains that violence is shaped by a range of risk factors that can be altered, mitigated, or even eliminated. onceptualizing violence as a type of “preventable disease” has provided important insights and interventions but also introduces limitations that may not be sufficiently acknowledged or understood within this perspective, particularly in the Global South. This chapter briefly outlines the history of the public health approach to violence in South Africa before describing its yields and limits. It then draws on recent studies, which suggest that the integration of interdisciplinary approaches emerging from a strong social science tradition can mitigate many of the conceptual limitations of the public health approach. The chapter concludes by demonstrating how approaches to violence grounded in these sorts of frameworks promise to deliver context-rich explanations of violence alongside the socio-ecological accounts for violence favored by a public health approach.
Description
Article published in the Handbook of Social Sciences and Global Public Health
Keywords
Public health, Violence, Global south, South Africa, Decolonization, Epidemiology, Homicide, Gender-based violence
Citation
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-96778-9_95-1#citeas
Abrahams N, Mathews S, Martin LJ, Lombard C, Jewkes R (2013) Intimate partner Femicide in South Africa in 1999 and 2009. PLoS Med 10(4):e1001412. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pmed.1001412
Abrahams N, Mathews S, Martin LJ, Lombard C, Jewkes R (2013) Intimate partner Femicide in South Africa in 1999 and 2009. PLoS Med 10(4):e1001412. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pmed.1001412