Interpersonal violence, including youth violence, child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, elder abuse and sexual violence, is estimated to cause about 73,000 deaths per year in the WHO European Region, and require medical assistance in hospital 20-40 times higher. Alcohol is involved in up to 40% of cases.

• Interpersonal violence is strongly associated with socioeconomic conditions: the risk of violent death is 14 times higher in countries of the European Region with low or medium income compared to those with high income.
• Males are the vast majority both among perpetrators and victims, and have a higher risk to die violently.
• Child maltreatment results in nearly 1,500 children under 14 dieing as a result of homicide, and dozens thousands more suffering life-long consequences.

The potential to reduce deaths from interpersonal violence is very large if effective interventions and policies are implemented.

WHO has estimated that if all countries in the European Region equalled the interpersonal violence mortality rates of the country with the lowest rate, nearly 90% of those deaths could be averted.

WHO supports its Member States in preventing violence by providing evidence and helping improve their capacity to strengthen prevention, and by facilitating the sharing of knowledge about prevention strategies that have proven effective.

What does WHO mean with violence?

WHO defines violence as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation (World Report on Violence and Health, 2002). This includes sexual violence, child maltreatment, suicide and other forms of violence.