Firearm-violence public health crisis ‘a wake-up call for solutions’

CHICAGO --- U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy on Tuesday declared America’s firearm violence a public health crisis. Northwestern University faculty cited for their work in firearm violence in the Firearm Violence Advisory offer quotes below and are available for interviews with the media.

Community violence intervention 

“This report is another wake-up call for solutions to address the staggering toll gun violence continues to inflict on Americans each year,” said Andrew Papachristos, whose research on secondary traumatic stress among community violence interventionists in Chicago was cited on page 14 of the advisory. “Our research points to a way forward. It starts with an investment in street outreach workers, who use their lived experiences with gun violence to help break the cycle of violence.” (Read his full quote below to learn more about his research) 

Professor Papachristos is the director of the Institute for Policy Research, the John G. Searle Professor of Sociology and director of the Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science (CORNERS) at Northwestern. His research applies network science to the study of gun violence, police misconduct, illegal gun markets, street gangs and urban neighborhoods. He can be reached at avp@northwestern.edu or by contacting Stephanie Kulke at stephanie.kulke@northwestern.edu. (His availability for interviews is limited June 24 – 28, but reporters may use the quotes provided in this advisory.)

Safe firearm storage

“Calling collective action on firearm injury and mortality as a public health crisis is something we can and must attend to. We have things that work; we need to implement them and study them,” said Rinad Beidas, whose research on long-term consequences of youth exposure to firearm injury was cited on page 14 of the advisory. The report calls out the need to conduct implementation research to improve effectiveness of prevention strategies. Beidas has published work on implementing a safe firearm storage program via pediatrician visits and currently is funded to do a much larger trial with that program. “This is a non-political, relatively inexpensive and scalable approach to save lives.” 

Beidas is chair of medical social sciences and the Ralph Seal Paffenbarger Professor of implementation in medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Reporters can schedule an interview with Kristin Samuelson at ksamuelson@northwestern.edu.

Mental disorder and violence 

“While the nation’s youth and young adults are disproportionately affected by the daily occurrence of firearm deaths and non-fatal firearm injuries, our research shows youth who have been previously involved with the juvenile justice system had up to 23 times the rate of firearm mortality than the general population,” said Linda Teplin, whose research on crime victimization in adults with severe mental illness was cited in the advisory. (Read her full quote below to learn more about this research)

Linda Teplin is vice chair for research and Owen L. Coon Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Professor at Feinberg. Teplin also is the primary investigator for the Northwestern Juvenile Project, the first large-scale longitudinal study of mental health needs and outcomes of delinquent youth after detention. She can be reached at LindaTeplin@Northwestern.edu or by contacting Stephanie Kulke at stephanie.kulke@northwestern.edu.

More quotes from Prof. Teplin:

“To reduce firearm violence, a creative and multidisciplinary approach is needed, one that involves legal and health care professionals, street outreach workers and public health researchers. People who have been shot are more likely to be injured again or killed. Therefore, hospital emergency departments are ideal settings to implement violence prevention interventions. Poverty also begets violence. We need to address the compound issues that lead to urban blight, such as inadequate housing, unemployment and poor infrastructure.

“The public cares a great deal about mass shootings, but they comprise less than 4% of all firearm deaths. We need to focus on the other 96% of everyday violence that disproportionately affects poor, urban youth, especially people of color.”

More quotes from Prof. Papachristos:

“These unarmed workers work in community violence intervention, or CVI, programs in communities that see the most violence. In one Chicago CVI program, we saw a double-digit decline in violence-related arrests. The participants stopped carrying guns, getting into fights, and robbing or shooting people — calming communities and saving lives. But this job takes a massive toll on outreach workers, who experience extremely high levels of trauma and violence. One of our studies revealed more of them were shot at while working on the job (12%) than police officers (1%). Another uncovered that 94% of outreach workers reported signs of secondary traumatic stress. So, to stop this public health crisis, we also have to take care of — and invest in — these critical frontline workers and build a community-focused violence prevention infrastructure to support them.”