Resilience Reframe: Rethinking Violence Prevention from Studying Well-Being

This year's conference theme focuses on using prevention science to promote health equity and well-being. One important factor in health inequality is violence exposure as victimization is linked to a myriad of negative mental and physical health problems and disproportionately affects some communities and groups of individuals. The growing fields of resilience science and positive psychology highlight key areas of strengths and protective factors that may reduce the impact of violence and improve its prevention. This 20x20 will explore how findings from the study of resilience suggest additional prevention strategies. For example, I will review key frameworks that are used to conceptualize sexual and intimate partner violence prevention and show how they are overly focused on reducing risk rather than promoting well-being. Using findings from a large community study of well-being in the rural south (communities that exemplify the health disparities highlighted in the conference theme), I will discuss strengths that participants reported and that might be targets for prevention work across the lifespan. I will present examples of their application in one specific aspect of prevention – bystander action to prevent interpersonal violence. Using this example I will explore questions about how lenses we pull from the study of resilience help us think about violence prevention differently.