Additionally, an infrastructure that supports the needs of communities should be defined and developed in order to prevent violence. Not only should those who are adversely affected by the problems of violence be of concern, but the entire community should be addressed in at least a portion of violence prevention. The public health approach also focuses on limiting the damage violence causes to the victims, perpetrators, and the community. This approach depends on the commitment of social and mental health services, public health, law enforcement, corrections, judicial, medicine, education, legal community, and most importantly, citizens working at the community level to produce change. To achieve this change, a scientific approach to violence and prevention must be used.
Prevention means change.
Sources such as reports from police, schools, hospitals, county health departments, newspaper clippings, Department of Human Services, and other sources of information can provide local violence information. Local data sources are valuable to the community because they reflect local aspects of the violence problem. The second step is setting goals and objectives for the prevention effort. A program that has been effective in one community may not be effective in another community because the needs and resources of each community are different. Examples of primary prevention are home visitation programs for adolescent mothers and community public awareness campaigns.