Ideas worth spreading

Let's treat violence like a contagious disease

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Gary Slutkin |

TEDMED 2013

• April 2013

Dr. Gary Slutkin spent a decade fighting tuberculosis, cholera and AIDS epidemics in Africa. When he returned to the US, he thought he'd escape brutal epidemic deaths. But he began to look more carefully at gun violence -- whose spread follows the same pattern as an infectious disease. His conclusion: We've reversed the impact of so many diseases, says Slutkin, and we can do the same with violence. A mind-flipping look at a problem that too many communities have accepted as a given.

Dr. Gary Slutkin spent a decade fighting tuberculosis, cholera and AIDS epidemics in Africa. When he returned to the US, he thought he'd escape brutal epidemic deaths. But he began to look more carefully at gun violence -- whose spread follows the same pattern as an infectious disease. His conclusion: We've reversed the impact of so many diseases, says Slutkin, and we can do the same with violence. A mind-flipping look at a problem that too many communities have accepted as a given.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Join the movement to activate the health sector and prevent violence.

About the speaker

Gary Slutkin

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Could our culture have misdiagnosed violence? As the director of the initiative Cure Violence, Gary Slutkin approaches gunfire on neighborhood streets as a contagious disease, looking to science and public health for strategies to stop it.

PBS Frontline, 2012 | Watch

The Interrupters

An award-winning documentary on the Cure Violence model that profiles three workers in Chicago.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014 | Watch

Cure Violence Promise Story

A short description of Cure Violence from the perspective of the police, public health department and Cure Violence staff.

Daniel W. Webster et al. | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, January 11, 2012 | Article

Evaluation of Baltimore's Safe Streets program: Effects on attitudes, participants' experiences, and gun violence

Webster and his colleagues evaluated the Cure Violence program in Baltimore and found strong results, including evidence of norm change.

Sarah Picard-Fritsche and Lenore Cerniglia | Center for Court Innovation, 2013 | Article

Testing a Public Health Approach to Gun Violence

Picard-Fritsche and Cernaglia provide further evidence of the Cure Violence model by showing the strong results in the Brooklyn adaptation.

Irving A. Spergel | AltaMira Press, 2007 | Book

Reducing Youth Gang Violence

Spergel's Little Village Gang Project was instrumental in the development of the Cure Violence model, specifically the work of the outreach worker. Two employees of Cure Violence formerly worked on the Little Village Gang Project.

Elijah Anderson | W. W. Norton & Company, 2000 | Book

Code of the Street

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Join the movement to activate the health sector and prevent violence.