Welcome to our first coffee chat. Each week we hope to summarize the different speaker's topics, and really discuss them here, and hopefully engage you on the discussion boards as well. >> We want to think about this particular Coursera course as generating a kind of community to the extent that we can with so many students and indeed, quite a few professors. But we do want to indicate in this coffee chat that we are here to talk with you and hope you will generate conversation also. >> So I think one of my take-aways from this week is, you know, why don't people really view violence as a problem like they do cancer or AIDS? And I think after reflecting on it, it's really because people might see it as an act of God or not preventable- >> Mm-hm. >> And, or something that happens to others, what do you think? >> I think, I, I agree and I also wonder whether violence is so pervasive we almost don't see it. Or there's certain kinds of violence we see and others that we don't. That on the one hand it's so generic, we hardly know how to talk about it and in another way because it's so generic, we don't know what to do about it. I would say, and so I suppose allied with that I think there's sort of a paradox is that violence is in a sense everywhere and yet it's also culturally located to some extent. So that was one of the take-aways for me is that some violence is recognized in some context, not others. So for example, nowadays in the United States rape in marriage is recognized as marital rape, but in, in quite a few other countries, that's not the case. >> And that's like even within the US you can see those cultural differences with things like spanking. >> Mm-hm, exactly, as we discussed, exactly. And so also, I was really struck and I learned something this week in that regard is the very high rates of suicide. >> Yeah. >> And again, serving your question back to you, you know, why do we not really focus more on this do you think? >> Yeah. And if you look at the news media, we'll hear more about that later in this course. You know, there's a lot of sensationalism of violence but suicide, I think, can be stigmatized quite often, or something that people don't talk about. And there's been talks too, that when you at look at coding a lot of times suicide actually isn't even coded as suicide. It might be an accidental or unknown [CROSSTALK]. >> When you say coding, talking to- >> Yes. [LAUGH]. >> A humanities person, do you mean you know, your lecture on surveillance? That, that, that part of doing surveillance is also making sure that you, you have the right kind of metrics to discuss- [CROSSTALK]. >> Ab, ab, ab, absolutely. >> To survey what you want to do. >> Sometimes medical records can be incomplete. Or a family might report you know, a death as really unknown how it happened. And it can be because there's stigma around suicide. The, a lot of times suicides may not truly be reported as suicide because of that stigma. And I think in the US as well as globally, if you look, suicides are more prevalent then homicides but again I don't think that's something we talk about. Suicides are preventable as we'll talk about- >> Mm-hm. >> Later this course but I think it's something we do need to focus our attention on. >> You know Deb one of take homes I took away from your lecture on surveillance is I mean we know that it's imperfect in the United States. But then, how much more challenging is it for people in countries which don't have, you know, a, a, a really great infrastructure? Even as our infrastructure is not as great as it once [LAUGH] was. But how do we then you know, do the surveillance that helps us identify violence and, and realize that there seems to be many challenges as you start looking at it as a global issue. >> And I think even within the US you really need data to drive decisions and although we may not have the best data possible in all instances, it can still really inform the different risk factors for both you know, victims and perpetrators and help subsequently, I think, inform interventions, and- >> Mm-hm. >> You know, I think again, looking at the surveillance data, it's obvious that violence is both predictable and preventable. And that's really what I hope the take-away from this week is. >> Yes and I think, indeed, just as Deb says, and for the whole course, really, I think we wouldn't be doing this course if we didn't think there is something to be done about violence and that, trying to understand why it happens might not really help us try to, prevent it in some way. So we'll see you next week and look forward to it. And seeing you online, too. The preceding program is copyrighted by Emory University.
