Call to action: Reducing interpersonal violence across the lifespan.

Abstract

On September 12-13, 2008, more than 40 representatives from national professional organizations, grass roots organizations, governmental agencies, policy organizations, and advocacy movements gathered together in San Diego, California, as part of the Think Tank on Reducing Interpersonal Violence Across the Lifespan: Connecting Agendas. Working as a whole and in small groups, the think tank identified major gaps and issues facing the field of interpersonal violence prevention and began to develop a blueprint for integrating action across types of violence and types of populations, as well as integrating research, practice, and policy across the lifespan. Recognizing the need for a mechanism to facilitate communication and integrative collaboration in research, practice, and policy activities across diverse domains of interests and populations, the organizations committed to work together formed the National Partnership to Prevent Interpersonal Violence Across the Lifespan. The 2010 conference will bring together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, advocates, consumers, and funders in a series of plenary sessions, workshops, and poster sessions to present cutting-edge examples of integrative work aimed at transforming approaches to the prevention of interpersonal violence. Interpersonal violence is an intransigent problem with widespread and long-lasting direct and indirect effects. Rates of intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual assault, and childhood physical and sexual abuse around the world remain unacceptably high (CDC, 2006; see also http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc). Although the rippling effects of interpersonal violence have yet to be fully understood and documented, it is known that outcomes of violence encompass death, injury, and a wide range of physical, sexual, reproductive, and mental health problems. This special section of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry encourages support for the call to action by the National Partnership to Prevent Interpersonal Violence Across the Lifespan.