Gun violence is a public health emergency. Recent studies show it has become the leading cause of death for U.S. youth — more than childhood cancer, drowning, and poisoning combined. When I first saw those studies, I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
Everyone who cares for kids needs to be engaged in addressing gun violence like never before because kids are dying like never before. But how can children’s hospitals and providers address the crisis? Here are three simple approaches.
1. Incorporate proactive gun safety conversations into our clinical care
The AAP and others endorse including gun safety as an aspect of anticipatory guidance. This can include education about safe storage practices, mental health screenings, media habits, and asking about guns in the home and in the places children visit and then providing evidence-based advice about reducing risk factors.
2. Get directly involved
Pediatricians and children’s health systems can partner with others in their communities to implement interventions, such as gun lock distribution, violence interruption, and gun buy-back programs. When Children’s Minnesota hosted a community health fair including a gun buy-back, we hoped to get 60 to 80 guns—we ended up with 119. That’s 119 fewer guns in our community, 119 fewer opportunities for a child to be shot to death.
We also participate in a program to support victims of violence. When a child or teen comes to one of our hospitals with a gunshot wound, someone from the program’s staff meets with the family and connects them to resources and services to help prevent re-injury. Programs like these have been shown to reduce re-injury in kids who are violently assaulted.
3. Support legislation
The approach best supported by the evidence, however, is legislation. Several studies have shown that limiting access to guns leads to reduced rates of self-inflicted firearm deaths and homicides. For example, states with more and stronger firearm access and safety laws have lower rates of firearm death than states with fewer and/or weaker laws.
At Children’s Minnesota, we prioritize gun violence prevention in our advocacy work with city and state officials. That means submitting written and in-person testimony to legislative committees. It means speaking out in blogs, public statements, newspaper opinion pieces, and working with the news media to get coverage on the effects gun violence has on our children.
It’s also important that we come together as advocates for children’s health. We in health care share a unique perspective on this public health crisis. At Children’s Minnesota, we have a front-row seat to how gun violence impacts children and families and our communities at large, so we have joined a national coalition of hospitals working to reduce gun injury and death in our kids.
Forging alliances, followed by concrete action, is important. We are stronger together.
Marc Gorelick, MD, is president and CEO of Children’s Minnesota. His recently published book is “Saving Our Kids: An ER Doc’s Common-Sense Solution to the Gun Crisis.”
