HJBR Mar/Apr 2023

26 MAR / APR 2023 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE   How do you define violence? We use the World Health Organiza- tion’s definition, which defines violence as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against one- self, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.” There are several forms of violence. Our Violence Prevention Institute (VPI) at Tulane University is an equity-focused hub supporting communities to foster trans- formative research, training, and advo- cacy to address systemic, structural, and interpersonal violence. There is great need to address structural violence as a key root cause of not only other forms of violence but also health inequities. Structural vio- lence refers to the multiple ways in which social, economic, and political systems expose particular populations to risks and vulnerabilities leading to increased mor- bidity and mortality. Those include income inequality, racism, homophobia, anti-Sem- itism, Islamophobia, sexism, ableism, and other means of social exclusion leading to vulnerabilities such as poverty, stress, trauma, crime, incarceration, lack of access to care, healthy food, and physical activity. Do you believe it is a public health crisis now in Louisiana? We are certainly dealing with violence, but all states are — as well as all nations, as it is a global issue (though gun violence is much more prevalent in the United States). Given its vast impact on illness and death as well as the social and economic costs, vio- lence is a public health crisis everywhere. It is really the less-discussed pandemic but should be treated with the same pub- lic health approach we received during the COVID-19 pandemic. Louisiana was second in the nation for gun deaths in 2020 with 26.26 deaths per 100,000, according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Professor at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine Senior Director of the Tulane Violence Prevention Institute Director of the Mary Amelia Center for Women’s Health Equity Research Katherine Theall, PhD Editor’s Note: In HJBR’s last “Letter from the Editor,” questions were asked to the industry about the current public health crisis of violence affecting the Baton Rouge area and Louisiana. The letter posed several questions to the industry on the what’s and why’s of violence. Katherine Theall, PhD, stepped up to the plate to answer those and more. Theall is a professor at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, senior director of the Tulane Violence Prevention Institute, and director of the Mary Amelia Center for Women’s Health Equity Research. As a social epidemiologist, her research focuses on reducing health inequities by understanding and altering neighborhood environments and social policies in underserved populations locally, nationally, and internationally. She has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator of more than 25 federally- and privately-supported research and training awards. She has worked and published in the field of violence prevention for over two decades and has a highly interdisciplinary background with educational and practical experience in social epidemiology and community health and prevention sciences. Her work involves close collaboration with both state and city governments, where she has been involved in research, programming, and translational efforts to improve health equity and well-being. We thank Dr. Theall for her thoughts and plan to continue this important discussion moving forward. If you are passionate about curing violence from an epidemiological perspective or have novel ideas on solving this epidemic from a public health view, please send your thoughts to editor@HealthcareJournalBR.com .