In 2002 the IOM Committee on the Training Needs of Health Professionals to Respond to Family Violence released a report entitled Confronting Chronic Neglect: the Education and Training of Health Professionals on Family Violence. The Committee made a number of recommendations regarding the integration of teaching about abuse into the health professional schools curricula. In 2005, several members of that committee, along with the leadership of the American Medical Association's National Advisory Council on Violence and Abuse, came together to form the Academy on Violence and Abuse (AVA). In 2007, AVA held its first conference in conjunction with the Family Violence Prevention Fund Biennial National Meeting in 2007. The focus of that meeting was finding ways to advance the recommendations of the IOM report. The proceedings of that conference published as Building Academic Capacity and Expertise in the Health Effects of Violence and Abuse a Blueprint for Advancing Health Professional Education. One of the conclusions reached by the 2007 conferees was that another, larger, scientific assembly should be organized by AVA to bring together academics and researchers to review the state of scientific knowledge regarding the long term effects of abuse on human physiology and to explore ways to integrate teaching about this topic into the health professions curricula. There is a growing body of literature that examines the mechanisms of action through which these effects occur, how they affect brain physiology, the relationship of exposure and chronic conditions and the effect of this exposure on health care utilization and costs. As a result, the case for integrating teaching on violence and abuse grows stronger each year. The AVA 2009 conference will serve as a forum for sharing this information as well as for sharing ideas about how to translate this research into a common body of teaching in the health professions curricula. Since one of our primary objectives is to share this information with as broad an audience as possible AVA is seeking AHRQ support to fund a substantial portion of the conference so that we can keep our registration fees low. We estimate registration fees for approximately 200 attendees at $23,750 and are requesting funding in the amount of $49,108 to cover the remaining conference costs.
Relevance to Public Health It is becoming increasingly evident that exposure to violence and abuse lead to adverse health consequences. Child abuse, for example, is linked to a whole host of chronic conditions in later life. But the health professionals who see the results of such exposures are not adequately trained to recognize and treat the underlying conditions. Improving training will have a broad and positive public health effects.
