Washington, D.C. During a web-based CME conference on July 13th, two of the nation's leading experts on adolescent violence and bullying examined the prevalence of adolescent violence including bullying in the United States, identifying risk and resiliency factors for violence, as well as common characteristics shared by victims and aggressors, and offered effective prevention strategies health professionals can use to combat the problem. The conference was co-sponsored by the American College of Preventive Medicine and Medscape/WebMD. A free archive of the session is now available online at http://www.medscape.com/viewprogram/5652.

In his opening remarks as moderator of the session, Dr. George Lundberg, Editor-in-Chief of Medscape General Medicine, said, "Despite a growing understanding of the psychological and physiological effects of violence and the need for preventive measures, the Office of the Surgeon General reports that rates of violent activity have not decreased since the mid 1990s." He continued, "Many schools still lack effective violence prevention and treatment programs; however, there are methods that health professionals can use to both identify and prevent youth violence."

Dr. Howard Spivak, discussing whether violent tendencies are a product of nature or nurture, stated that, "the fact that the rates [of adolescent violence] are relatively low in the rest of the world as compared to this country gives the positive message that this is, in fact, preventable and that this phenomenon in the United States reflects either something we are doing that is promoting violence or violent behavior, or something we're not doing." Dr. Susan Limber, Associate Director of Clemson University's Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life and one of the nation's foremost bullying experts, stressed that health care professionals should be "vigilant" when evaluating their patients, lookin
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Contact: Jenn Rogers
jrogers@acpm.org
202-466-2044 x107
American College of Preventive Medicine
17-Jul-2006