[Notification of violence as a strategy for health surveillance: profile of a metropolis in Brazil].

Violence is a serious public health problem and notification of incidents is fundamental for epidemic surveillance and for the definition of priorities and public politics of health prevention and promotion. The study sought to characterize the occurrence of domestic violence, sexual and other forms of violence, based on the information of the database of the Information System of Notification of Offences (Sinan), on the records of violence of the city of Belém in the state of Pará, in the period from January 2009 to December 2011. In this period 3,267 notifications were recorded, which represented an increase of 240% in the number of notifications of the year 2009 compared to 2011.