Gun violence and injury prevention efforts stymied by federal funding cuts
As the federal government slashes funding to the nation’s public health infrastructure, the U.S. could see a rise in gun violence, along with an increase in other injuries, including intimate partner violence and falls among the elderly. Below, David Hemenway, professor of health policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, explains why.
Q: What federal funding cuts have been made to injury and violence research and prevention efforts?
A: The president’s proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) puts zero money toward addressing gun violence. In recent years, the CDC has funded all sorts of important research to help reduce firearm injuries. Among many current projects, CDC-funded scholars have been examining the effectiveness of hospital-based violence intervention programs, which are designed to reduce future violence among shooting victims, and anonymous school reporting systems, which allow students to report problematic behavior by their peers. Their research has shown that such reporting systems have helped prevent planned school shootings, as well as many youth suicides.
The proposed federal budget also zeroes out funding for community violence prevention, injury control research centers, and youth violence prevention centers. Injury control research centers analyze how to reduce all kinds of injuries, from sports injuries and drownings to homicide and suicide. Youth violence prevention centers partner with local communities on programs to curb violence among minors. Researchers have found that these programs have often led to significant reductions in youth assaults and other illegal behavior.
And that’s not all. The presidential budget also substantially reduces funding for CDC research into the prevention of suicide and intimate partner violence. It even eliminates funding for research into the prevention of falls among older adults.
Q: What are the consequences of these cuts?
A: Today in the U.S., if you die before the age of 40, it’s more likely from an injury than from a disease. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for American children and teenagers. The public health consequences of gun violence include not only fatalities, but also non-fatal wounds, along with mental and physical health challenges for families of victims and for others exposed to the violence. For older adults, falls are the leading cause of injury death.
Without investment into understanding how people are incurring injuries and what’s fueling community violence—and then developing and testing solutions—Americans are less safe. The kicker is, we may not know how much less safe, because the funding cuts haven’t spared data systems. The CDC’s non-fatal firearm injury data system is being eliminated, for example, meaning we’ve lost our best source of data on the proportion of non-fatal gunshot wounds that are due to assaults, self-harm, or accidents. And since most CDC injury prevention scientists have been terminated, it’s unclear whether remaining systems, such as the National Violent Death Reporting System, will have the manpower to be maintained.
Q: As an injury prevention researcher yourself, what’s your reaction to the cuts?
A: I think back to the 25 years when, after the 1994 Republican takeover of both houses of Congress, the CDC was effectively prevented from studying or supporting gun violence prevention. At the time, I was appalled that the U.S.’s premier public health agency was unable to conduct scientific research that could help keep our population safe. The impact of these current drastic funding cuts will be far worse, as they affect all injuries, not just firearm injuries.
As federally funded programs are eliminated, the work at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center will take on even greater importance. For decades, much of our funding came from the CDC, and for some of these years we were an official CDC youth violence prevention center, working with nonprofit organizations in Boston. Today, we’re lucky our work can continue because our funding comes from foundations like the Joyce Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and New Venture Fund.
Much of our current research is focused on answering basic questions about gun issues whose answers remain unknown. We are researching, for example, how many 3D-printed guns there are and who owns them; whose guns are stolen and under what circumstances; when police kill people with mental illness; and when police are present when someone commits suicide. We are also continuing to work with gun shops and gun trainers to reduce gun suicide by promoting the practice of “babysitting” guns. Similar to “friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” the idea is for family and friends to hold on to the guns of someone who is going through a rough patch.
