The Economics of Injury and Violence Prevention

"Health economics examines the costs and consequences of health issues, connecting public health science to real-world applications. It is used to develop policies and programs that promote healthy lifestyles and positive health outcomes that are also cost-effective for individuals, states, and the nation. 

CDC’s Injury Center applies health economics to the study of opioid overdoses, suicide, child abuse and neglect, intimate partner violence, older adult falls, traumatic brain injury, motor vehicle crashes, and other causes of injuries and violence. We use health economics to identify, measure, value, and compare the costs and consequences of injuries and prevention strategies.

Understanding the Costs and Consequences of Injuries and Violence

Unintentional and violence-related injuries cause more than 240,000 deaths among people of all ages in the United States each year. Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for people ages 1-44.

A greater number of people experience nonfatal injuries each year. Nonfatal injuries can cause life-long mental, physical, and financial problems.

Fatal and nonfatal injuries are costly. A recent CDC study estimated the medical care cost of U.S. fatal and nonfatal injuries by type of injuryexternal icon..."
Economics of injury

Violence Prevention in Practice

"Learn how Violence Prevention in Practice can help you take action to prevent violence.

Violence Prevention in Practice

Violence Prevention in Practice (VPP) is a new online resource designed to help states and communities take action and carry out strategies that prevent violence from happening before it starts and to lessen a person’s or communities’ harm or risk for future violence.

Learn more about VPP and the best available evidence to build a strong foundation for your violence prevention efforts.

What the Resource Covers

VPP guides users through the process of planning, implementing, and evaluating strategies identified in CDC’s violence prevention technical packages. Technical packages include a select group of strategies based on the best available evidence to prevent or reduce public health problems such as violence. They work in combination to change norms, environments, and behaviors in ways that can reduce or eliminate violence in communities.

The guidance is organized in multiple sections that detail specific actions you can take to prevent violence. Those sections are:

• Planning
• Partnerships
• Policy Efforts
• Strategies and Approaches
• Adaptation
• Implementation
• Evaluation..."
  Violence prevention

CDC's VetoViolence Website

"VetoViolence is CDC’s online source of free violence prevention trainings, tools, and resources. Check out the VetoViolence website to learn how to stop violence—before it happens.

Why Use VetoViolence?

Are you a busy violence prevention practitioner, short on time, doing more with less, and looking for ways to maximize your resources? CDC’s VetoViolence website offers free, online, interactive, and engaging violence prevention tools, trainings, and resources based on the best available evidence and research..."

Violence prevention

Technical Packages for Violence Prevention

"CDC’s Technical Packages for Violence Prevention: Helping States and Communities Prioritize Activities

CDC has developed technical packages to help states and communities prevent violence based on the best available evidence.

The suite of technical packages developed by the Division of Violence Prevention includes:

• Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect: A Technical Package for Policy, Norm, and Programmatic Activities[3.9 MB]
• STOP SV: A Technical Package to Prevent Sexual Violence[2.85 MB]
• A Comprehensive Technical Package for the Prevention of Youth Violence and Associated Risk Behaviors[4.09 MB]
• Preventing Suicide: A Technical Package of Policy, Programs, and Practices[6.11 MB]
• Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Across the Lifespan: A Technical Package of Programs, Policies and Practices[4.52 MB]Each package includes a select group of strategies to prevent violence from happening in the first place as well as to lessen the immediate and long-term harms of violence. The strategies are intended to work in combination and reinforce each other. The technical packages describe the approaches to advance each strategy and the evidence behind them. They include strategies that have potential for broad public health impacts on violence and strategies that reduce or buffer against risks for violence in relationships with peers, intimate partners, families, schools, and communities...."
  

Violence prevention

Community HealthSim

"The Community HealthSim is a violence prevention tool on CDC’s VetoViolence website. This game-like experience demonstrates the connections between violence and community issues, such as struggling businesses and schools, overcrowded jails, and long wait hours in the emergency room.

The simulation puts you in the driver’s seat of Vetoville. You can explore the town from the perspective of a “special advisor”—brought in to determine how to spend the town’s limited resources to improve the quality of life for everyone who lives there..."

Community HealthSim

Using Different Types of Evidence in Decision Making

"The Understanding Evidence tool is for you if you want to inform violence prevention activities. The tool is an interactive Web resource developed by CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention that supports public health practitioners in making evidence-informed decisions around violence prevention. The goal of evidence-based decision making is to bring a high standard of research evidence into the decision-making process while considering the contextual and experiential factors that influence those decisions..."
Understanding Evidence

Free Violence Prevention Course

"One way CDC is helping the nation prevent violence is a free on-line course that's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's called Principles of Prevention. For more information, visit http://vetoviolence.cdc.gov/pop/..."
Violence Prevention Course