Safety and social support
About
Safety and social support are how we take care of each other. Community safety and support includes work that builds belonging and social connection, meeting the needs of individuals and families, and violence and injury prevention efforts. Some examples are mental health services, housing support, community centers and financial assistance programs. Meeting people’s needs while holding individuals accountable for their actions can help keep us all safe.
Relationship to health and equity
Safety and social support shape our health in a variety of ways. People who are more connected with others are healthier than those who are isolated. Neighborhoods with more social support may be less likely to experience violence than neighborhoods with fewer community support programs and resources such as mentoring programs, libraries and crisis response teams. However, safety and social support are more available to some individuals than others. For example, Black and Native American people, those experiencing homelessness and mental illness, and transgender youth may not experience increased police presence as producing safety and, in fact, experience stress, injury and death at the hands of the criminal justice system at a much higher rate.
Relationship to systems and structures
Prevailing worldviews, values and beliefs about who deserves social support drive policy decisions. For many in the U.S., community safety is grounded in fear, isolation and retribution. These ideas appear in budgets, laws, policies and institutional practices. For example, law enforcement has a long history of both enforcing discriminatory policies, such as Jim Crow laws, as well as disproportionately targeting Black communities. Moving toward safety that is based on belonging, accountability and resources can change our actions so they reinforce relationships and mutual support. For example, procedural justice is a practice in the law enforcement community that elevates transparency of procedures. When stopping someone, police are required to identify themselves by name and badge number, state and explain the reason for the stop. Compared to a practice of asking people if they know why they were stopped, procedural justice creates trust and positive impacts, such as community members cooperating with police and people understanding why they were stopped.
Additional Reading
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, October 17). A public health approach to community violence prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/community-violence/php/public-health-strategy/index.html
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, May 15). Social connection. https://www.cdc.gov/social-connectedness/about/index.html
- Armstead, T. L., Wilkins, N., & Nation, M. (2019). Structural and social determinants of inequities in violence risk: A review of indicators. Community Psychology, 49(4), 878-906. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7278040/
- Center for American Progress. (2021). How weak safety net policies exacerbate regional and racial inequality. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/weak-safety-net-policies-exacerbate-regional-racial-inequality/
- Watson, T., & Goodman, G. (2024). The social safety net looks different in every state. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-social-safety-net-looks-different-in-every-state/