The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recognizes that the quality of health is connected to the quality of life. Discovering new pathways to better health includes addressing behaviors that endanger the peace and safety of individuals, families and communities. Violent behavior can stand in the way of better health for people from all walks of life, age, income levels, education or country of origin.

Although violent behavior is not restricted by economic class, language or location, certain populations are at higher risk of injury and harm. They include communities of color; immigrants; people who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ); people isolated because of their racial, tribal or ethnic group and people who live in remote rural or frontier locations.

There is great latitude in the definition of violence, so that proposals may reflect community priorities:

• Eligible projects may relate to interpersonal or public violence, to the behavior of gangs or individuals, or to the experience of war or of family violence.
• Projects may relate to the impact of intentional or unintentional violent behavior in homes, schools, work sites, neighborhoods or other public or private settings.
• Projects may serve any age, from the youngest children to the most senior members of a community.
• Prevention programs are eligible as are projects designed to help people affected as victims, witnesses or perpetrators.
• Projects may address behaviors that cause emotional, psychological or physical harm including intimate partner violence, child or elder abuse, gang activity or post-war trauma.
• Projects may address hate crimes, bias or abuse in the workplace or in public, nonprofit or private agencies.
• Projects may address threats or endangerment from strangers or from persons well known to the victim, as well as sexual violence or intimate partner violence.
• Projects that deal creatively with conflict and anger, that strengthen communities by identifying risk and protective factors, and that create immediate, practical solutions to improve health and quality of life are also eligible.

In 2010 Peaceful Pathways: Reducing Exposure to Violence will fund projects that work to reduce violence in the context of a specific, vulnerable community. RWJF seeks practical strategies to increase community peace and safety, foster resiliency and build upon individual and group strengths, assets, wisdom, compassion and skills in order to address violence as a serious health problem. We are especially interested in projects that look realistically at underlying causes of violence for a particular group; then address those systems and issues in a culturally appropriate way considering how language skills, significant cultural differences, education, income and discrimination affect health outcomes.