Political and Social Violence: Health Effects

Abstract

Political and social violence are part of a typology that includes cultural, economic, and structural violence. Social or interpersonal violence includes discrimination, domestic violence, rape, and murder. Economic or structural violence keeps populations or subgroups entrenched in poverty or limited in their ability to improve their working and living conditions. Cultural violence prevents people from perpetuating their tangible or intangible cultural heritage, including language and customs. Political violence includes denial of citizenship or representation, wrongful detention or enslavement, forced eviction, and statelessness. Governmental or quasi-governmental structures or violent environments can encourage political violence by looking away from criminal activity, degrading the environment, making guns versus butter choices for the economy, or engaging in detention or armed conflict. Political violence can be ranked according to its lethality, with genocide the most deadly, followed by international wars, internal wars, and terrorism. The health effects of political violence are extensive: increased rates of death, disability, adverse birth outcomes, infectious and chronic diseases, and mental illness. The impact of political and social violence on the health care system and infrastructure can be extensive and difficult to reverse. Violent environments can be healed, but healing requires accountability and reconciliation, as well as a commitment to basic human rights.