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Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary (2013)

Chapter: Appendix B: Glossary

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Glossary." Institute of Medicine and National Research Council. 2013. Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13489.
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Appendix B

Glossary

Agent: factor whose presence (or absence) is necessary for the occurrence of a disease.

Carrier: individual who harbors a specific infectious agent without visible symptoms of the disease. In the case of violence, a carrier can transmit violence without directly committing an act of violence.

Cluster: aggregation of cases of a disease that are closely grouped in time and place. Frequently the expected number of cases is not known.

Contagion: transmission of a disease from one individual to another through direct contact or indirect exposure.

Disease: condition in which the functioning of the body or a part of the body is interfered with or damaged. Usually the body will show some signs and symptoms of the interference with or damaged functioning and exhibit adverse health outcomes. A disease, such as violence, can be either acute or chronic.

Infectious disease: disease that is caused by the invasion of a host by agents and can be transmitted to other individuals.

Epidemic: occurrence of cases of a disease in a community or region that is in excess of the number of cases normally expected for that disease in that area at that time.

Exposure: instance of being subjected to an action or influence.

Dose exposure: refers to the amount of exposure, which can be along spectrum of acute to chronic.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Glossary." Institute of Medicine and National Research Council. 2013. Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13489.
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Host: individual in which a disease lives.

Immunity: resistance to infection; in the case of violence, an individual’s level of immunity is frequently increased through exposure to protective factors and decreased through exposure to risk factors.

Incubation: period of inapparent infection following disease exposure and ending with the onset of symptoms of apparent infection. In the case of violence, the incubation period varies widely; individuals can be exposed to violence, but not exhibit any violent behavior until a significant period of time has lapsed.

Infection: entry and development of an infectious agent in the body. An infection can be either apparent (showing outward symptoms of illness) or unapparent (showing no outward symptoms of illness).

Interruption: prevention of disease transmission.

Latency: time period between infection and infectivity to others.

Mediators and cofactor: either a risk or protective factor that affects the transmission or prevention and interruption of a disease.

Protective factor: aspect of personal behavior or lifestyle, an environmental exposure, or an inborn or inherited characteristic that is associated with a decreased occurrence of disease.

Risk factor: aspect of personal behavior or lifestyle, an environmental exposure, or an inborn or inherited characteristic that is associated with an increased occurrence of disease.

Spread: movement of an infectious disease from a vector to a host. In the case of violence, one type of violence can spread virally to multiple cases of the same type of violence, such as suicide clusters. Violence also can spread through a spillover effect, with one type of violence spreading to other types; for example, child abuse can lead to later occurrences of intimate partner violence.

Susceptibility: level of immunity or resistance to a disease. Susceptibility varies depending on mediators and cofactors such as time, context, and biological circumstances.

Transmission: any mechanism by which an infectious disease is spread from a source to an individual. Violence can be transmitted horizontally, from individual to individual, and vertically, through intergenerational transmission.

Vector: carrier that transmits an infectious agent from one host to another.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Glossary." Institute of Medicine and National Research Council. 2013. Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13489.
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Page 154
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Glossary." Institute of Medicine and National Research Council. 2013. Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13489.
×
Page 155
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The past 25 years have seen a major paradigm shift in the field of violence prevention, from the assumption that violence is inevitable to the recognition that violence is preventable. Part of this shift has occurred in thinking about why violence occurs, and where intervention points might lie. In exploring the occurrence of violence, researchers have recognized the tendency for violent acts to cluster, to spread from place to place, and to mutate from one type to another. Furthermore, violent acts are often preceded or followed by other violent acts.

In the field of public health, such a process has also been seen in the infectious disease model, in which an agent or vector initiates a specific biological pathway leading to symptoms of disease and infectivity. The agent transmits from individual to individual, and levels of the disease in the population above the baseline constitute an epidemic. Although violence does not have a readily observable biological agent as an initiator, it can follow similar epidemiological pathways.

On April 30-May 1, 2012, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Forum on Global Violence Prevention convened a workshop to explore the contagious nature of violence. Part of the Forum's mandate is to engage in multisectoral, multidirectional dialogue that explores crosscutting, evidence-based approaches to violence prevention, and the Forum has convened four workshops to this point exploring various elements of violence prevention. The workshops are designed to examine such approaches from multiple perspectives and at multiple levels of society. In particular, the workshop on the contagion of violence focused on exploring the epidemiology of the contagion, describing possible processes and mechanisms by which violence is transmitted, examining how contextual factors mitigate or exacerbate the issue. Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary covers the major topics that arose during the 2-day workshop. It is organized by important elements of the infectious disease model so as to present the contagion of violence in a larger context and in a more compelling and comprehensive way.

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