Adolescent or youth violence is a very visible violence in modern society and in 1996 the World Health Assembly declared violence a leading public health issue. In order to understand the scope of the problem, we looked at the epidemiology of global adolescent violence. In 2000 it was estimated that 199,000 adolescent homicides (9.2 per 100,000) occurred globally or about 565 adolescents died each day due to interpersonal violence with variations around the globe. One type of prevention program that has proven effective is prenatal and early childhood home visitation with long-term follow-up that has shown to be cost effective.