Copyright © Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. C URRENT O PINION Prevention of domestic violence against women and children in low-income and middle-income countries Erminia Colucci a and Ghayda Hassan b Purpose of review Violence against women and children is increasingly recognized as an important and urgent public health, social and human rights issue cutting across geographical, socioeconomic and cultural boundaries. There is a large and growing body of literature that demonstrates the negative impact of such violence on the victim’s mental and physical health, as well as several other consequences on them, their families and communities. However, this literature for the most part comes from the so-called ‘developed countries’. This review, at the opposite, focused on current literature on prevention of domestic/family violence against children and women in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Recent findings Establishing effective prevention programmes for domestic violence against women and children in LMICs requires an understanding of the sociopolitical, economic and cultural settings and a multilevel collaboration among various stakeholders. Summary This review confirms the lack of research in the so-called ‘developing countries’ and provides suggestions for further research and prevention efforts in this setting. Keywords child maltreatment, domestic violence, LMICs, prevention, women INTRODUCTION Domestic/family violence, including child maltreat- ment and intimate partner violence (IPV), are public health concerns worldwide [1] and have been associ- ated with acute short-term and long-term physical and mental health, and social consequences on victims [2,3 & ,4–8], as well as multiple consequences and costs at the individual, family, community, national and international levels. For instance, the review by McLeigh and Melton [9] indicated that, with only one exception, all of the studies found a strong and consistent association between IPV and suicidality. Short-term and long-term consequences of maltreatment and exposure to domestic violence on children and adolescents vary by type of maltreatment, sex and country [10–17]. Several factors have emerged as increasing the risk for domestic violence (e.g. [18 && ]). The studies we reviewed on child maltreatment and abuse prevalence in the family/domestic setting reported rates ranging from 23 to 77% and varied by type, sex, country and community [11,19 & ,20]. Most of these prevalence data came from institutional or clinical samples. Boys were more at risk for experiencing abuse as compared with girls [11,12,20]. Violence against women is increasingly acknowledged as an important health, social and human rights concern crossing regional, social and cultural boundaries [21 && ]. Nevertheless, also the prevalence and the forms of violence vary across countries and populations [22], with rates ranging from 23% (IPV only) in Mexico to 47% in Bolivia [23,24] and up to 80% in Uganda [25 && ]. Roman and a Centre for Mental Health, Global and Cultural Mental Health Unit, School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia and b Department of Psychology, University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, Canada Correspondence to Erminia Colucci, Centre for Mental Health, Global and Cultural Mental Health Unit, School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. Tel: +61 03 9035 3082; e-mail: ecolucci@unimelb.edu.au Curr Opin Psychiatry 2014, 27:350–357 DOI:10.1097/YCO.0000000000000088 www.co-psychiatry.com Volume 27  Number 5  September 2014 REVIEW