In Public Health, violence has been studied according to the classic risk approach. The analyses developed in such perspective are able to show population tendencies of morbidity and mortality, and also identify risk factors that are part of the causal chain of violence. Nevertheless, even though they are important as sources of information and hypotheses, when isolated such analyses are not capable of dealing with the complexity that is involved in violence. This paper aims at starting a reflection on the possibilities of the use of the vulnerability concept in the study of violence, specifically for understanding the situations that make youths be the main homicide victims. It is proposed a new approach to risk that considers the sociocultural processes that are present in the vulnerability of such group to lethal violence, through a perspective that presents the specificities of youth and the challenge imposed by the contemporary social life.
Risk; Vulnerability; Homicides; Youth