Commercial determinants of violence highlighted at World Safety Conference by Prof Mark Bellis

This September, on behalf of the VISION research consortium and Liverpool John Moores University, Professor Mark Bellis gave the plenary violence prevention address to World Safety Conference in in New Delhi, India.

World Safety 2024 is the World Health Organization’s biennial global conference on injury prevention and safety promotion, covering all aspects of violence and unintentional injury.

Mark’s plenary dealt with the commercial determinants of violence based on a paper published earlier this year with his VISION colleagues, Professor Sally McManus and Dr Olumide Adisa, and others.

In his presentation, Mark outlined how, as well as governments, public sector organisations and charities, commercial organisations also have a major part to play in the prevention of violence. The plenary considered commercial influence on violence through political, scientific, marketing supply/waste chain, labour & employment financial and reputational management practices. For some industries such as the arms and alcohol industries their relationships the causes of violence are already relatively well understood. However, mining, financial, social media, clothing and other manufacturing industries are also contributors to a growing violence problem.

The plenary presentation addressed commercial impacts on child maltreatment, sexual and domestic violence, youth violence and elder abuse. It also explored how companies can, and should, move from being part of the violence problem to leaders in implementing solutions.