Prevention Institute

Violence not only directly contributes to poor health outcomes, it also dampens the impact of chronic disease prevention efforts and exacerbates inequities in health outcomes. While practitioners and advocates working on preventing chronic disease have made great strides in creating community environments that support health-promoting behaviors, many communities are still confronted with problems of violence. The effectiveness of chronic disease prevention strategies—designing neighborhoods that encourage walking and bicycling to public transit, parks, and healthy food retail or attracting grocery stores in communities that lack access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables—can be undermined when violence, or the fear of violence, is pervasive in a community. In order for the impact of these types of strategies to be most effective, violence and safety concerns in a community must also be addressed. Violence not only negatively impacts healthful eating and physical activity environments and behaviors, it contributes to overall health and safety inequities. Therefore, addressing violence is key to reducing health inequities: while violence exists in most communities, its link to healthy eating and active living is more prominent in our most disenfranchised communities.

Linkages Between Violence and Healthy Eating and Activity

A: Violence and fear of violence affects individual healthy eating and active living behaviors
1. Individuals who fear violence in their community are less physically active and spend less time outdoors than others.
2 . Fear of violence alters purchasing patterns and behaviors at the expense of accessing healthy food.
3 . Victims and witnesses of violence are less likely than others to have healthy eating and activity patterns.

B: Violence alters the community environment making it less supportive of healthy eating and active living

4. Violence reduces social interactions that would otherwise contribute to community cohesion.
5. Violence disincentivizes investments in community resources and opportunities that could support healthy eating and activity.

 

Overarching Themes on the Linkages Based on Interviews With Community Practitioners Focused on Healthy Eating and Active Living

• Violence or the fear of it impedes a person's ability to engage in healthful eating and physical activity, is not supportive of healthy eating and active living environments, and undermines the effectiveness of chronic disease prevention strategies.
• Practitioners and advocates focused on improving community environments to support healthy eating and activity want a better understanding of effective violence prevention strategies and how chronic disease-promoting strategies can be shaped with an eye towards preventing violence.
• Chronic disease prevention groups lead some efforts to address community violence, but more often than not, these efforts are separate from the efforts led by violence prevention groups. Further, often the two efforts aren't coordinated or even known to the other.
• Building partnerships and cross-sector collaborations are effective strategies for addressing the negative impact of violence their efforts to foster healthy food and activity.
• As efforts to address both healthy eating and activity and violence move forward, partners need support in identifying the joint efforts and forging strategic partnerships and roles in advocating and implementing for effective long-term strategies.