Approximately 2 million American workers are the victims of workplace violence each year, yet strategies to prevent workplace violence are poorly understood.

To help meet this need, the University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center (UI IPRC) sponsored a national workshop in April 2000. Held in Washington, DC, the Workplace Violence Intervention Research Workshop brought together researchers and representatives of industry, labor, and municipal, state, and federal governments.

The 37 invited participants, which included James Merchant, Craig Zwerling, John Lundell, and Leslie Loveless of the Injury Prevention Research Center, identified key issues related to workplace violence and the intervention research questions that must be answered to effectively address this public health problem. The participants’ recommendations, which will have major implications for future research, were made public in March.

In recent years, researchers have identified specific types of workplace violence (see box at right). Prevention strategies generally fall into three categories:

• environmental (such as lighting or surveillance cameras)
• organizational/administrative programs and policies
• behavioral/interpersonal (e.g. staff training)

So far, there has not been sufficient research to demonstrate which approach might best prevent which type of workplace violence.

Employers seeking to prevent workplace violence, therefore, have responded with a wide variety of measures, depending on the type of business and risk, population served, location of the workplace, and a multitude of other factors.

Workshop participants recommended that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) take the lead in developing a national research initiative and urged all those with a stake in preventing workplace violence to press for federal funding for such an initiative.

The February 2001 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, a theme issue devoted to workplace violence, features five review papers written by workshop participants. A special “Report to the Nation” containing the workshop recommendations has been issued in both print and electronic versions.

Dr. James Merchant, dean of the UI College of Public Health and director of the UI IPRC Public Policy Core, directed the planning of the workshop, which he says reached its goals.

“The highly knowledgeable participants not only reviewed the available literature on this important topic,” he said, “but also identified research priorities. The next steps will be to raise public awareness of the scope and impact of workplace violence and stimulate resources for workplace violence research.”