UC Among Public Health Leaders Urging Call to Action on Gun Safety
Published: 1/19/2017
In an unprecedented call to action, public health leaders from
some of the nation’s top universities on Thursday, Jan. 19
urged consensus-building on gun safety, rather than confrontation,
saying that the election of President Donald Trump had "changed the
national conversation on firearms” and made federal policy
changes unlikely.
Writing in the
American Journal of Public
Health on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, researchers from
nine leading medical and public health schools—including Jun
Ying, PhD, of the University of Cincinnati—presented an
"agenda for action” that seeks to engage gun owners and
manufacturers in discussions about reducing the public health ills
associated with firearm ownership, rather than continuing the
politically polarizing debate.
"In the United States, nearly 10 times more guns are in
civilian hands than in the next closest country, with up to 300
million guns in circulation…The country also has a
significant gun culture,” they wrote. "This situation
suggests that there will be no easy solutions that will garner
widespread popular support, and that any comprehensive approach to
the problem will require the engagement of partners across many
sectors.”
The researchers, speaking for a larger group of 82 academics
and advocates who convened at the Boston University School of
Public Health in November to discuss gun violence, issued a
five-point "agenda for action” that includes calling on
private foundations and the business community to fund and support
research to mitigate gun violence, as a step to turn the tide on a
crisis that they said costs the U.S. an estimated $229 billion
annually.
The experts noted that Congressional action in 1996
effectively ended federal funding for gun research, stymying "a
generation of researchers in the field.”
Ying, who is professor and director of the Master of Public
Health Program in the Department of Environmental Health says,
"Compared to the level of the problem, the research and data are
very sparse,” adding that the Centers for Disease Control
have not been allowed to collect injury data on gun
incidences.
"In my opinion, everyone should agree it is a public health
situation; there have not only been deaths and injury, which are
tragic, but the full impact on family, friends and the community is
much greater. The psychological impact is not short-lived; it
won’t go away. A life can be gone in just seconds. As a
program director and father, I want to be involved in this
conversation.”
The paper grew out of a Nov. 14 meeting of 42 schools of
public health and medicine from 22 states, and 17 advocacy
organizations, convened at the BU School of Public Health (BUSPH)
by Dean Sandro Galea.
The group also called for:
- Focusing on state-level
initiatives. The expected lack of federal action on gun
regulation in the coming years "elevates the importance” of
state and local initiatives, especially those rooted in
"non-threatening messaging” about gun safety. Three states
– California, Nevada and Washington – approved ballot
initiatives in November promoting gun safety. A state-level
strategy "creates a range of opportunities” for academic
leaders around the country to develop state-specific strategies and
policies, they said.
- Promoting discourse around gun
safety, vs. gun control. The researchers acknowledged that
few issues were as polarizing as guns, and that the gun lobby had
been "extraordinarily successful” in framing the discussion
as one that pits "deeply held views about individual rights”
against concerns about public health. To alleviate that conflict,
public health advocates must play a role in re-framing the debate
"around the need for gun safety, rather than a blanket call for
banning guns.”
- Engaging private industry,
starting with healthcare entities. The researchers said
industry involvement is needed for evidence-based initiatives to
reduce gun injuries, citing research findings that firearm violence
depresses business growth and harms neighborhood economics. They
noted that the total social cost of gun-related injuries is more
than that of obesity, and roughly the same as annual spending on
Medicaid. "This situation represents an enormous economic challenge
… that should engage not only the public health community,
but also sectors of private industry, with an interest in
maximizing productivity,” they said.
- Building collaborations with
opponents. The group proposed convening an "inclusive
group” of firearm owners, manufacturers, police, pro-gun
advocates and public health scholars to develop "common
ground” around the issue of reducing violence, versus
assailing gun ownership.
Galea, the paper’s senior author, said public health
leaders have a responsibility to speak with a "clarity of
voice” about an issue that claims more than 30,000 lives a
year in the U.S.
Co-authors along with Galea and Ying are: Charles Branas,
professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of
Medicine; Andrew Flescher, associate professor at the Stony Brook
Medicine Program in Public Health; Margaret Formica, assistant
professor at the State University of New York Upstate Medical
University; Nils Hennig, director of the Master of Public Health
Program at the Icahn School of Medicine; Karen Liller, professor at
the University of South Florida College of Public Health; Hala
Madanat, director and professor of the division of health promotion
and behavioral science at San Diego State University Graduate
School of Public Health; Andrew Park, assistant professor of
emergency medicine at the University of Kansas School of Medicine;
John Rosenthal, president of Meredith Management and founder of
Stop Handgun Violence.
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