Youth Violence: An Emerging Public Health Problem

Abstract

Youth violence has been a major social problem for the Western world for long. The problem in South-East Asia is of recent origin. It is pervading the lives of significant portion of young people regardless of social class, race, ethnicity, culture or country. Youth violence includes various behaviors such as bullying, slapping or hitting and other behaviors such as robbery and assault could also be fatal. Violence involving young people adds greatly to the costs of health and welfare services, reduces productivity, decreases the value of property, disrupts a range of essential services and generally undermines the fabric of society. Thus it becomes pertinent to understand youth violence in all aspects so as to develop an appropriate prevention approach for tackling this menace. The current paper highlights the burden of youth violence in the region. It also attempts to describe various aspects of youth violence, its risk factors and what approach could be followed to tackle it