Adolescent violence is a very visible violence in our modern society, where you just have to open the newspaper or the television and you find yourself right in the middle of it. In order to understand the scope of the problem, we need to look at the epidemiology of global violence. Each year, more than 1.6 million people world-wide lose their lives to violence and for every person who dies as a result of violence, many more are injured and suffer from a range of physical, sexual, reproductive and mental health problems. Violence places a massive burden on national economies in health care, law enforcement and lost productivity. We are talking about a major public health problem. Programs for intervention have been researched and long-term follow-up indicates that early intervention is working and even if such programs would seem to demand a substantial economic investment, they have been proven cost-effective in the long run. In this book, we have gathered presentations on bullying, aggression, violence, suicide and prevention from an international perspective.
JJoav Merrick, MD, MMedSci, DMSc Professor of Pediatrics at the Division of Pediatrics, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center, Mt Scopus Campus, Jerusalem, Israel, Kentucky Childrens Hospital, University of Kentucky, Lexington, United States and Professor of Public Health at the Center for Healthy Development, School of Public Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, United States, the former Medical Director of the Division for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services, Jerusalem and the Founder and Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Israel
Hatim A Omar, MD, FAAP, Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology; Professor of Family Studies; and Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Kentucky, Lexington. He is the holder of the Children's Miracle Network Endowed Chair in Pediatrics. Dr. Omar has completed residency training in obstetrics and gynecology as well as pediatrics. He has also completed fellowships in vascular physiology and adolescent medicine. Dr. Omar is the founder and chairman of the Stop Youth Suicide Cmpaign. He is the recipient of the Commonwealth of Kentucky Governor's Award for community service and volunteerism in 2000, Kentucky Teen Pregnancy Coalition Award for outstanding service 2002, Awards for suicide prevention from the Ohio Valley Society for Adolescent Medicine and Kentucky Pediatric Society in 2005 and 2007, Sexual Abuse Awareness Month Award for his work with sexual abuse victims from the Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Professionals in 2007, Special Achievement Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics 2007 and the Founders of Adolescent Medicine Award from the AAP in 2007. He is well known internationally with numerous publications in child health, public health, pediatrics, adolescent medicine, pediatric and adolescent gynecology.
