Changing Cultural and Social Norms that Support Violence

This briefing for advocates, programme designers and implementers and others is one of a seven-part series on the evidence for interventions to prevent interpersonal and self-directed violence. The aim of this briefing is to encourage increased efforts to implement and evaluate well-designed interventions that challenge cultural and social norms which support violence. Accordingly, this briefing:

• Defines cultural and social norms and illustrates how they support violence;
• Provides examples of interventions that seek to alter these norms; and
• Identifies the main challenges faced by evaluations of the effectiveness of such interventions.