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Ted Slutkin Analysis

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In the Ted Talk, Let’s Treat Violence Like a Contagious Disease, physician and epidemiologist, Dr. Slutkin, explains how his credentials in treating infectious diseases brought him to view violence as a public health issue. According to Dr. Slutkin, after analyzing graphs and data, it appeared that patterns of violence in US cities seemed to behave similarly to patterns of contagious disease. He said that “there was clustering, similar to that we’d seen also in infectious epidemics such as cholera.” These data showed that there were waves of violence, one after the other. This is just how contagious diseases behave because epidemics are combinations of many epidemics. In addition, it was shown that the greatest predictor of a case of violence is a preceding case of violence. Just as with the flu, the greatest risk factor of contagious disease is being exposed to the disease. Dr. Slutkin took this opportunity to apply his expertise on signs and behaviors of epidemic disease to potentially reverse what he saw as a “violence epidemic”. As he mentions, there are three steps to reversing contagious disease that are as follows: interrupting transmission (1), preventing further spread (2), and shifting the behavioral norms of the people (3). In the case of infectious diseases, you …show more content…

Slutkin’s program encompassed three different approaches for reducing aggression. The first being punishment which must be prompt and relatively strong in order to be effective. The second is inducing incompatible responses for the aggressive behavior. The third is teaching non-aggressive responses, which is largely due to the, “changing the norms” phase of his program through social modeling, internalizing anti aggression beliefs, apologies, social skills training, and reducing exposure to violence. A big portion of his program is in this stage of public health education related to violence prevention and dealing with aggressive

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