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Abstract
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Gun violence is a defining public health challenge of our time. As the United States grapples with the shooting deaths of 17 people in Parkland, Florida, on 14 February 2018, the medical and public health communities must step up and do our share to prevent such devastation from recurring. Effective public health strategies have reduced such threats as motor vehicle injury, tobacco use, accidental poisonings, and drownings. Effective strategies are built on research to identify patterns of risk, illuminate productive targets for intervention, and assess the effectiveness of interventions. Unfortunately, the United States lacks a comprehensive public health approach to gun violence, due in large part to the absence of federal funding for research on gun violence for more than 2 decades.
In 2013, after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, President Obama directed federal agencies to mount research programs to improve understanding of the causes of gun violence and interventions to reduce it. As a result, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council (NRC) to define a public health research agenda for gun violence. The resulting consensus report, “Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence,” laid out the highest-priority research questions to effect progress in a 3- to 5-year time frame (1). These recommendations remain relevant and may be even more urgent today. Without research, policymakers are flying blind when they propose new laws or policies.
A provision in a 1996 omnibus spending bill known as the Dickey Amendment forbade the CDC from using its funds to promote or advocate for gun control. This was interpreted as a prohibition on supporting any research on firearms, and the CDC program was dismantled. As a result, we lack even the most basic information about the prevalence and safety of firearms in the United States, as well as data on the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing the probability of injury and death related to their use.
The shooting in Parkland has prompted renewed calls for research, including from members of Congress. The 2013 IOM/NRC report provides an immediately actionable blueprint to advance such an agenda. The report notes that public health research should be integrated with insights from criminal justice and other fields because no single agency or research strategy can provide all of the answers. The proposed research agenda focuses on characteristics of firearm violence, risk and protective factors, interventions and strategies, the effects of gun safety technology, and the influence of video games and other media...
Language: en |