Violence, towards both men and women, is an important public health problem and results in reduced wellbeing, worse quality of life and greater use of care and allied services. People with mental illness often report greater experience of violence and crimes, as victims, than those without mental illness. However, this research area is limited by challenges in routinely enquiring about and measuring violence and crimes using self-report, a lack of follow-up studies, and differences between those who choose to participate in studies, or report violence, and those who do not. Evidence on a possible relationship between mental illness and later exposure to violence and crime is inconclusive. My ALSPAC proposal will examine whether mental disorders increase risk of later exposure to physical and sexual violence and whether this relationship is explained(mediated) by changes in social behaviour which occur as a result of mental illness, but which also increase risk for later experience of violence. This proposal forms part of a funding application to study this question across different types of data to arrive at stronger conclusions - observational data from a birth cohort study(ALSPAC, the present proposal), electronic health record data from London, and national data from Sweden. Identifying the reasons for association between mental disorder and subsequent experience of physical and sexual violence could be important in prediction, and in improving safety and quality of life in people with mental illness.