Violence is the use of physical force to cause harm to people, animals, or property, such as pain, injury, death, damage, or destruction. Some definitions are somewhat broader, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation."
Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception of an imbalance of physical or social power. This imbalance distinguishes bullying from conflict. Bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by hostile intent, imbalance of power and repetition over a period of time.
Positive youth development (PYD) programs are designed to optimize youth developmental progress. This is sought through a positivistic approach that emphasizes the inherent potential, strengths, and capabilities youth hold. PYD differs from other approaches within youth development work in that it rejects an emphasis on trying to correct what is considered wrong with children's behavior or development, renouncing a problem-oriented lens. Instead, it seeks to cultivate various personal assets and external contexts known to be important to human development.
Adolescent medicine, also known as adolescent and young adult medicine, is a medical subspecialty that focuses on care of patients who are in the adolescent period of development. This period begins at puberty and lasts until growth has stopped, at which time adulthood begins. Typically, patients in this age range will be in the last years of middle school up until college graduation. In developed nations, the psychosocial period of adolescence is extended both by an earlier start, as the onset of puberty begins earlier, and a later end, as patients require more years of education or training before they reach economic independence from their parents.
Youth suicide is when a young person, generally categorized as someone below the legal age of majority, deliberately ends their own life. Rates of youth suicide and attempted youth suicide in Western societies and other countries are high. Youth suicide attempts are more common among girls, but adolescent males are the ones who usually carry out suicide. Suicide rates in youths have nearly tripled between the 1960s and 1980s. For example, in Australia suicide is second only to motor vehicle accidents as its leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 25.
Communities That Care (CTC) is a program of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) in the office of the United States Government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). CTC is a coalition-based prevention operating system that uses a public health approach to prevent youth problem behaviors such as violence, delinquency, school drop out and substance abuse. Using strategic consultation, training, and research-based tools, CTC is designed to help community stakeholders and decision makers understand and apply information about risk and protective factors, and programs that are proven to make a difference in promoting healthy youth development, in order to most effectively address the specific issues facing their community's youth.
Bullying suicide are considered together when the cause of suicide is attributable to the victim having been bullied, either in person or via social media. Writers Neil Marr and Tim Field wrote about it in their 2001 book Bullycide: Death at Playtime.
Grace G. Wyshak is an American biostatistician known for her work on twins and heritability of genetic information and in defining the factors impacting girls as they develop into young women. She holds a position at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Wendee M. Wechsberg is an American social science researcher. Wechsberg's research focuses on developing and testing the efficacy of HIV prevention interventions among key populations of substance abusers globally. She is a recognized expert in the fields of substance abuse, gender inequality, and HIV. She developed the Women's CoOp intervention, a woman-focused behavioral HIV intervention that incorporates gender- and culture-specific skills training. Wechsberg is a Principal Researcher and Director of the Substance Use, Gender, and Applied Research (SUGAR) Program at RTI International and Director of the RTI Global Gender Center. She is also adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health, Adjunct Professor of Psychology at North Carolina State University (NCSU), and adjunct professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine.
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn is an American developmental psychologist and professor. She is currently the Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Velma McBride Murry is an American psychologist and sociologist, currently the Lois Autrey Betts Chair in Education and Human Development and Joe B. Wyatt Distinguished University Professor at Vanderbilt University. Her research has largely focused on resilience and protective factors for African-American families, and she has several publications in this area. In addition to her empirical research, she has contributed to several published books and used her experience to create two family-based preventative intervention programs.
Anita Raj is an American developmental psychologist and global public health researcher focused on sexual and reproductive health, maternal and child health, and gender inequalities including gender-based violence, discrimination and bias. Until 2023, Raj was the Tata Chancellor Professor of Society and Health and was a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Education Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Raj was also the Founding Director of UCSD's Center on Gender Equity and Health. In 2023, Raj was named the Executive Director of the Newcomb Institute at Tulane University.
Rachel Leland Levine is an American pediatrician who has served as the United States assistant secretary for health since March 26, 2021. She is also an admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
Renee M. Johnson is an American scientist specializing in the mental health of adolescents and young adults. She researches substance abuse, substance use epidemiology, and violence in marginalized youth including persons of color, LGBTQ, and immigrants. Johnson is an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Rebekah D. Fenton is an American pediatrician and adolescent health advocate. Fenton is an Adolescent Medicine Fellow in The Potocsnak Family Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Lurie Children's Hospital at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois.
Anne Cheryl Petersen is an American developmental scientist. She served as dean of the College of Health and Human Development at Pennsylvania State University, deputy director and chief operating officer of the National Science Foundation, and vice-president of programs at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. She is one of the founders of the Association for Psychological Science. In 2000, she was listed as one of the most influential psychologists by the Encyclopedia of Psychology. Her research has focused primarily on adolescent development and gender issues.
Claire Brindis, DrPH, is a Distinguished Emerita Professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy, Department of Pediatrics and Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Health Sciences and Emerita Director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Her research considers women's, adolescent and child health, as well as adolescent pregnancy prevention strategies. She was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine in 2010.
Melissa Lynn Gilliam is an American pediatric and adolescent gynecologist. She is the first black woman to serve as provost of Ohio State University, having previously served as a Professor of Health Justice at the University of Chicago. On the 4th of October 2023, she was announced as the incoming president of Boston University.
Catherine Mason Gordon is an American pediatrician who is the Clinical Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health.
Kalisito Biaukula is a Fijian human rights activist, who is vakasalewalewa. In 2019 they attended the Youth Assembly of International Civil Society Week. In 2022 they were part of a consultation effort organised by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in advance of the Stockholm 50 conference. They have worked for Youth Voices Count, a non-governmental organisation for LGBTQ+ youth who work to address human rights issues. They have also been outspoken on how, in some Fijian homes, conversion therapy is aligned with physical violence and domestic abuse.
