Dr. Alexander Butchart is the Prevention of Violence Coordinator in the Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. His responsibilities include coordinating the Global Campaign for Violence Prevention, the development of policy for the prevention of interpersonal violence, preparation of guidelines for the prevention of specific types of interpersonal violence, and the coordination of research into various aspects of interpersonal violence and its prevention. His postgraduate training includes a master's degree in clinical psychology and neuropsychology, and a doctoral degree for work examining the history and sociology of western medicine and public health in southern Africa. Prior to joining WHO he worked mainly in Southern and East Africa, where he was lead scientist in the South African Violence and Injury Surveillance Consortium, and in collaboration with the Uganda-based Injury Prevention Initiative for Africa participated in training violence and injury prevention workers from a number of African countries. He has been a visiting scientist at the Swedish Karolinska Institutet's Division of Social Medicine, and is a widely published social scientist.