Since 2005, UNITY has worked with cities around the country that are committed to preventing violence. We collaborate with departments of health and public health, multisector community safety coalitions, mayors' offices, and other municipal leaders through the UNITY City Network. The members of our network are committed to:

  • Preventing and reducing community violence and other forms of violence
  • Promoting and engaging a public health approach to violence prevention
  • Sustaining a local planning and implementation process that includes multi-sector collaboration
  • Supporting practice and innovation to collectively advance the field and shift the paradigm on violence, and what cities can do about it
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Cities in Action is an interactive collection of profiles developed by Prevention Institute that showcases successful community initiatives to prevent violence. These profiles are meant to demonstrate key steps to creating safe, equitable environments and inspire similar action in other communities and locales. Sample profiles include:

  • Atlanta, GA: Not Even One
  • Boston, MA: The Boston Gun Project: Operation Ceasefire
  • Chicago, IL: The Campaign to STOP the Shooting
  • Columbus, OH: Strategies Against Violence Everywhere
  • Denver, CO: Youth Leadership Training
  • Louisville, KY: Youth Print
  • Philadelphia, PA: The Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia Campaign
  • San Jose, CA: Mayor’s Gang Prevention Task Force
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Our resources can help you learn to make the case that violence is preventable. These fact sheets, reports, interviews, and op-eds cover topics ranging from violence as a public health issue; links between violence and chronic disease; and strategies for preventing violence effectively. Sample resources include:

  • A piece by Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, one of the first people to describe violence as a public health issue, on how practitioners can prevent violence in the years to come
  • Fact sheets on the links between violence and learning, and violence and mental health
  • An op-ed co-authored by PI’s Rachel Davis, on how prevention is a better investment than prisons
  • An assessment of youth violence prevention activities in U.S. cities
  • An FAQ sheet on violence as a preventable public health issue
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  • New UNITY briefs on Cradle to Community: A Focus on Community Safety and Healthy Child Development

    Cradle to Community was a national partnership project of Prevention Institute and the Center for the Study of Social Policy, supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. With the UNITY City Network and Early Childhood LINC, the project identified strategic policy, practice, systems, and norms change levers to make communities safer so that all children have the opportunity to develop optimally. The project also identified policies and practices to strengthen early childhood development as a strategy to foster safer communities in the long-term.

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  • Gun violence must stop. Here’s what we can do to prevent more deaths.

    Time and again, we are heartbroken by the news of another mass shooting. Part of our healing must be the conviction that we will do everything in our power to keep these tragedies from happening in a nation that continues to face a pandemic of gun violence. 

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  • Speaking Truth to Power

    In recognition of the dramatically shifting national landscape, a group of leaders in community violence prevention gathered for a meeting at Prevention Institute’s (PI) Oakland, California office.

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  • UNITY Road Map

    To help you get to know the UNITY RoadMap, UNITY has created an interactive experience that lets you navigate through the elements, read related articles, and watch video clips to learn more about how to effectively and sustainably prevent violence.

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