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There has been at least 25,874 gun violence deaths and 22,706 injuries in the U.S. so far in 2022, … [+]<\/span> based on data from on the Gun Violence Archive. (Photo: Getty)<\/span><\/p>\n <\/fbs-accordion>getty<\/small> With at least 25,874 gun violence deaths and 22,706 injuries in the U.S. so far in 2022, based on data from on the Gun Violence Archive<\/a>, gun violence is clearly a hospital and health system issue. After all, those are the places where people tend to go after getting shot. That\u2019s why Kaiser Permanente and the American Hospital Association sponsored a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) workshop<\/a> in 2018 that looked at how hospitals and health systems could help prevent firearm injuries and deaths. That same year, Kaiser Permanente announced the formation of their Firearm Injury Prevention Task Force<\/a> along with a $2 million research fund to review an establish new best practices in preventing gun-related injuries and death. And now Kaiser Permanente has just launched a new Center for Gun Violence Research and Education.<\/p>\n That year, 2018, was also when the National Rifle Association (NRA) told medical doctors who had been trying to raise awareness about the growing gun violence problem in the U.S. to \u201cstay in their lane,\u201d in a tweet-connected editorial. Well, as I covered for Forbes<\/em> on November 11, 2018<\/a>, that lane remark went over about as well as a lead balloon in a rainstorm over a magnetized floor. If the NRA thought that remark would push away the medical community from the issue, they had another thing coming, to borrow some words from that Judas Priest song. Not surprisingly, numerous doctors pushed back and emphasized in an even louder manner that gun violence is unfortunately well within their lane. That\u2019s what happens when over 320 gun violence victims show up each day in emergency rooms across America, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine<\/em> in 2020<\/a>. Gun violence has become a \u201cleading cause of premature death\u201d in this country, according to the American Public Health Association (APHA)<\/a>. In fact, gun violence has become the number one cause of death among those from 1 to 19 years of age in the U.S.<\/a> <\/p>\n Yet, for over two decades since the 1990\u2019s, the U.S. Congress had refused to allocate any significant amount of federal funding for the study of gun violence and safety before finally relenting in 2019, as I covered for Forbes<\/em> in December 2019<\/a>. This historical lack of funding may have kept different healthcare systems and medical schools around the country from making gun violence more of a research priority, because guess what, surprise, surprise, research priorities often follow the money. But that lack of funding prior to 2019 didn\u2019t prevent Kaiser Permanente from making its own investment in 2018, as they ended up funding three 24-month clinical research studies that involved developing and integrating firearm suicide prevention tools and better understanding the risk factors of firearm-related injuries and death.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been a longstanding lack of funding for gun violence research,\u201d said Bechara Choucair, MD<\/a>, chief health officer and senior vice president for Community Health at Kaiser Permanente. \u201cWhile there\u2019s been lots of research over the past decade in other areas, there hasn\u2019t been nearly as much in gun violence.\u201d Kaiser Permanente\u2019s initiatives will \u201cHelp build the evidence, allowing clinicians and researchers to approach gun violence research with the same rigor [as has been done with other areas]. We\u2019re thrilled about the progress of the three projects.\u201d<\/p>\n Kaiser Permanente has just launched a new Center for Gun Violence Research and Education. (Photo: … [+]<\/span> Getty)<\/span><\/p>\n <\/fbs-accordion>getty<\/small> And now the establishment of the Center will further amp up Kaiser Permanente\u2019s investment in the area with another $1.3 million in funding. This time the funding will help establish not only the Center but also collaborations with a set of nonprofit organizational partners via grants that have been already awarded. The nine awardees include:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a tweet from Kaiser Permanente on their new Center and a response from the End Family Fire campaign: <\/p>\n \u201c[Through the new Center], we will approach solutions from a public health framework,\u201d Choicair explained. \u201cWe need to go upstream to identify root causes of gun violence and identify systems levels change.\u201d He also mentioned how the Center will \u201caim to reduce the impact of gun violence. We will be working to reduce emotional and psychological trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n Obviously, gun violence has a serious impact on its victims. No one really says, \u201cOther than getting shot, the day\u2019s been good.\u201d Clearly, gun violence adversely affects those around the victims in many awful ways, especially when the victims are permanently injured or killed from gun shot wounds. Then there\u2019s the economic consequences. A report from Everytown Research and Policy<\/em><\/a> estimated that gun violence costs America around $557 billion a year or about 2.6 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. This includes an average of $7.79 million each day (yes, each day) in health care costs plus patient transportation\/ambulance costs paid out by survivors and their families as well as employers and taxpayers. And you are bound to fall into at least one of these groups, assuming that you are one of those folks in this country who pays taxes. With this massive impact and resources being drawn from other aspects of healthcare, health systems investing more money to find and implement ways to prevent gun violence should make dollars and a whole lot of sense.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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