Can hospitals prevent gun violence?
Training in Thinking -Gun violence
A case study on Data and Information Management
Can hospitals prevent gun violence? This ‘universal screening’ study will find out.
Doctors often ask patients about the health risks in their daily lives, such as sugar intake or tobacco use. After all, doctors can use that information to design better treatments. And on a larger scale, health professionals can use anonymized medical data on substances like sugar and tobacco to learn more about diseases like diabetes and lung cancer. So, what if doctors began asking similar questions about guns, which are involved in more than 100 deaths in the U.S. every day? Could patients and researchers benefit in similar ways?
A new study from Northwell Health, the largest health system in New York State, aims to find out. In the "We Ask Everyone. Firearm Safety is a Health Issue" study, which began in September, doctors will ask every patient who visits an emergency department at three Northwell Health facilities about their access and exposure to firearms, with questions like:
- Do you have a gun at home?
- Do you have access to guns outside your home?
- Have you had a gun pulled on you over the last six months?
The answers will become part of a large, anonymized data pool that will help researchers better understand the underlying factors behind gun violence. Northwell Health will also offer interventions to at-risk patients. "This will be the first research study to universally screen all patients who come into the emergency department for firearm access, and gun violence risk, and then intervene as needed, with gun safety counseling, gun locks, community resources, and medical referrals," said Dr. Chethan Sathya, director of Northwell's Center for Gun Violence Prevention. "If you look at any other public health issue, it starts with this universal type of approach."