Public Safety: Prioritize collaborative, multisector, community-inclusive approaches to ensuring safety for all members of our community.

A public health approach to public safety must promote strategies to reduce factors that put people at risk for experiencing violence and increase factors that protect or buffer them from risk. A multisector public health approach to public safety that is informed by and responsive to the community will ultimately lead to a city that is safer, stronger, more connected and more resilient. Enforcement is essential to public safety, but it’s only one of other equally essential components that together comprise a holistic approach, including nontraditional strategies for reducing crime and violence. In the pursuit of safer communities, it is essential to consider not just individual actors, but also the relationships between individuals, the communities in which those relationships exist, and societal factors that influence the climate and conditions of the city. Influential societal factors include conditions, policies and practices that create and sustain disparities.

 Place and race are a factor in public safety. Systemic inequities must be addressed and opportunities made available for all residents to ensure sustainably safe and strong communities A public health approach public to safety must promote strategies, including nontraditional practices, to reduce factors that put people at risk for experiencing violence and increase factors that protect them or buffer them from risk.