Northwell Center for Gun Violence Prevention Annual Report 2021 Shreeja Patel
1 B.A. ,
and Dr. Chethan Sathya
2 M.D.
1Donald
and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell 2Director of Northwell Center for Gun Violence Prevention, Assistant Medical Director of Trauma and Pediatric General and Thoracic Surgery
Introduction • Firearm injuries are a serious public health problem in the United States with approximately 109 people dying from firearm-related injuries per day. • These injuries are among the 5 leading causes of death for Americans between the ages of 1 and 64.1 • The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the gun violence epidemic as both homicides and unintentional shootings increased to record levels in 2020.2 • A public health approach to firearm injuries and mortality focuses directly on prevention rather than punishing perpetrators.3 • Firearm injury prevention strategies from the healthcare lane have not been adequately studied and implemented.4
Project Aim
Challenges
To create an Annual Report to distribute at the Northwell Health Gun Violence Prevention Forum that includes brief statistics, moving photographs, stories from survivors and victims of firearm injuries, a summary of current initiatives at Northwell and partner institutions and a call to action.
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Completion of this project required coordination of a diverse group of contributors that included representatives from organizations outside of the host institution. Concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic moved the 2021 Gun Violence Prevention Forum from an in-person to virtual format. Therefore, changes had to be made to the format of the annual report.
Process Map
Background • Northwell Health has been awarded a 1.4-million-dollar grant to study gun violence prevention and establish and implement a novel screening protocol to identify those most at risk of firearm related injuries. • In 2019, the Northwell Health Center for Gun Violence Prevention was established. • A grassroots Learning Collaborative for Health Systems and Hospitals has also been created that includes representatives from over 100 domestic healthcare institutions hoping to tackle the gun violence epidemic. • Northwell Health hosts an annual Gun Violence Prevention Forum to encourage collaboration between members of this collaborative and policy experts.
Future Directions Figure 1: Firearm with cable lock Patients that screen high for firearm injury risk are offered free cable locks by trained health professionals at Northwell Health.
This project is currently still in progress. The estimated date of completion is November 2021 prior to the December Annual Gun Violence Prevention Forum.
Resources 1: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Violence Prevention 2: Everytown Research and Policy 3: Private Guns Public Health by David Hemenway 4: Joseph et.al. Developing Data Driven Solutions to Gun Violence 5: Northwell Health Center for Gun Violence Prevention