Selwyn Rogers and Everett Lyn on Gun Violence as a Public Health Crisis

Selwyn O. Rogers MD is the Dr. James E. Bowman Jr. Professor of Surgery (first James E Bowman professorship), Chief, Section of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Founding Director, Trauma Center and Executive Vice President, Community Health Engagement University of Chicago Medicine
  
March 2021 
Senate Judiciary Committee
Selwyn O. Rogers

Solutions for prevention and treatment of gun violence:
 

1. Re-frame gun violence as a public health crisis 

2. Allocate $1 billion to fund research to prevent gun violence commensurate with the burden on society. Given the $43 billion NIH budget for research, a significant amount of dollars should be allocated to gun violence prevention research since this has been lacking for decades. 
3. Develop and fund primary prevention strategies
A. Invest economically in high-risk communities of color that have a disproportionate burden of intentional gun violence to build jobs, increase earning capacity, provide housing and give people hope
B. Educate and counsel people on safe firearm storage
C. Screen people at risk for firearm injury or death
D. Engage communities on social determinants of disease, such as poverty, and connect them with social services through hospitals and health-care systems 

4. Victims of violence are known to be at very high risk to be involved in repeated episodes of violence.4 Target this high-risk population and develop and fund secondary violence prevention programs: 
A. Fund street outreach programs that prevent retaliatory violence
B. Fund programs for those at the highest risk of recidivism that provides transitional jobs and cognitive behavioral therapy. 

Everett T Lyn MD is the Former Clinical Director and Director of Faculty Affairs and Development Brigham and Women's Hospital. Former Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine North Shore Medical Center  Former Chief Medical Officer Dignity Health Care and Former Assistant Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School.