Abstract
Backgroundviolence is a public health major concern, and it is associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychiatric outcomes. Brazil is one of the most violent countries in the world, and has an extreme social inequality. Research on the association between violence and mental health may support public health policy and thus reduce the burden of disease attributable to violence. The main objectives of this project were: to study the association between violence and mental disorders in the Brazilian population; to estimate the prevalence rates of exposure to violence, post-traumatic stress disorder, common metal disorder, and alcohol hazardous use and dependence: and to identify contextual and individual factors, including genetic factors, associated with the outcomes.Methods/designone phase cross-sectional survey carried out in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A multistage probability to size sampling scheme was performed in order to select the participants (3000 and 1500 respectively). The cities were stratified according to homicide rates, and in Sao Paulo the three most violent strata were oversampled. The measurements included exposure to traumatic events, psychiatric diagnoses (CIDI 2.1), contextual (homicide rates and social indicators), and individual factors, such as demographics, social capital, resilience, help seeking behaviours. The interviews were carried between June/2007 February/2008, by a team of lay interviewers. The statistical analyses will be weight-adjusted in order to take account of the design effects. Standardization will be used in order to compare the results between the two centres. Whole genome association analysis will be performed on the 1 million SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) arrays, and additional association analysis will be performed on additional phenotypes. The Ethical Committee of the Federal University of Sao Paulo approved the study, and participants who matched diagnostic criteria have been offered a referral to outpatient clinics at the Federal University of Sao Paulo and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Highlights
Over the past decades, violence became a major public health concern worldwide
Its economy is predominantly based on services, and its gross domestic product (GDP) was of around 56 billion US dollars in 2006, the GDP per capta being equivalent to 9.1 thousand US dollar/year
Several studies have found violence to be associated with PTSD [9,14,17,58], and common mental disorders [59,60]
Summary
Violence became a major public health concern worldwide. In 1993, the Directing Council of the Pan American Health Organization declared the prevention of violence to be a public heath priority, and three years later the World Health Assembly proposed a similar resolution [1]. The World Report on Violence and Health [2] estimates that more than 1.6 million people worldwide died in 2000 as a result of violence. The average rate of homicides in the Americas between 2000 and 2005 was the highest worldwide (17.8 per 100,000 inhabitants), and in Brazil the average homicide rate during the same period ranked fourth highest in the Americas (31.0 per 100,000 inhabitants) [4]. 82% of all homicides in the region occurred in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico [5]
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