Data to action: mobilising compassion and merging voices in safety promotion

Abstract

The idea that scientifically-produced data can and should be used to inform violence prevention policies and practices is not new. Yet, within the public health oriented community safety promotion sector we know relatively little about the contextual, inter-personal, content, institutional and social actor factors that significantly influence the research-policy-practice nexus. Drawing on anecdotal accounts of trauma and loss, and an analysis of our social responses to the 2004 Asian tsunami and the anti-apartheid struggle, this paper represents an attempt at focusing on what matters in data to action.