Gary Slutkin - Violence as an Infectious Disease

This presentation at Pop!Tech was fascinating. Gary Slutkin has a background in infectious diseases and discovered that the spread of violence behaves a lot like the spread of disease. He has applied the formula for containing the spread of infectious diseases to violence reduction in Chicago with great success.

The formula to control infectious diseases looks like this:

1. Interrupt transmission
2. Change the behavior that is driving the transmission (this is based on the social network)

You change behavior by sending out the same message through various channels with credible messengers. You can learn more about the CeaseFire program to end violence in Chicago here.