White House Summit on Public Health Crisis of Gun Violence, $2.25 Million in Grants for Transformative Community-led Research, + More
The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention
The HAVI’s mission is to reduce violence, particularly in communities of color, by advancing HVIPs
White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention Hosts Summit of Health System and Hospital Executives on the Public Health Crisis of Gun Violence
To kick off Gun Violence Awareness Month, the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention convened more than 150 health care executives and practitioners for a special summit focused on advancing a public health approach to addressing gun violence. At the summit, leaders were urged to gather data on gunshot injuries, invest in community violence intervention (CVI) strategies such as hospital-based violence intervention programs (HVIPs), and integrate interventions such as counseling on firearm safety into clinical practice.
The HAVI’s executive director, Fatimah Loren Dreier, spoke at the event, highlighting the critical role of HVIPs and their contributions to reducing gun violence as part of the broader CVI ecosystem. Also in attendance at the summit were Kyle Fischer, MD, MPH, policy and advocacy director at the HAVI, and Ruth Abaya, MD, MPH, who serves as the HAVI’s senior director of health systems and CVI integration.
Learn more about the summit and read the HAVI’s statement.
The Kaiser Permanente Center for Gun Violence Research and Education Awards $2.25 Million in Grants to Support Transformative Community-led Research
The Kaiser Permanente Center for Gun Violence Research and Education, powered by the HAVI, recently announced $2.25 million in grants for 10 projects focused on reducing the incidence and effects of community gun violence and firearm suicide. The grant recipients include people most impacted by gun violence, who can provide the insight and expertise needed to develop and scale effective solutions to this public health crisis.
Since the center was established in 2022, it has awarded a total of nearly $7 million in grants to a diverse group of researchers and community-based and national organizations to build the evidence base for effective preventive and clinical interventions to address gun violence in the most heavily affected communities.
To learn more about the spring 2024 grantees and the center’s equitable grantmaking framework, please visit the center’s website and read the press release.
Break the Cycle of Violence Summit at the Johns Hopkins Hospital
To address the ongoing gun violence crisis in Baltimore, the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) has led the development of a community violence intervention (CVI) ecosystem, which coordinates efforts across city agencies, health systems, community organizations, and law enforcement to reduce the impact of gun violence in Baltimore’s most affected neighborhoods.
To continue the expansion and advancement of this ecosystem, Johns Hopkins Medicine — in collaboration with MONSE and the Johns Hopkins Break the Cycle Violence Intervention Program (BC-HVIP) — hosted the second annual Break the Cycle of Violence Summit on Friday, June 6 — National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
The summit convened stakeholders from across Baltimore to discuss strategies to reduce gun violence injuries in the city. The HAVI’s policy and advocacy director, Kyle Fischer, MD, MPH, led a panel discussion titled, "Implementation of the Teachable Moment: Hospital Violence Intervention Programs.” Also in attendance was HAVI Advisory Board member Joel Fein, MD, MPH, who participated in a panel discussion on pediatric HVIPs and trauma-informed care.
HAVI Advisory Board Member Awarded Practitioner of the Year by the Philadelphia County Medical Society
Earlier this month, HAVI Advisory Board member Joel Fein, MD, MPH, was honored at a special ceremony hosted by the Philadelphia County Medical Society, where he received the society's Practitioner of the Year Award. This honor — which recognizes a physician who provides patient care and community service with compassion and dedication — was awarded to Dr. Fein in recognition of his pioneering research on hospital-based violence intervention.
Dr. Fein is a pediatrician and emergency medicine physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, and the founder and co-director of the CHOP Center for Violence Prevention. He also founded and continues to lead the Violence Intervention Program at CHOP, a hospital-based violence intervention that serves violently injured young people in Philadelphia.
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HAVI Advisory Board Member Thea James Honored as a “Health Equity Champion”
Thea James, MD, MPH, MBA, a member of the HAVI’s Advisory Board, was recently recognized as a “Health Equity Champion” by the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center. As co-executive director of the Health Equity Accelerator program at Boston Medical Center (BMC), Dr. James helps lead innovative interventions to close gaps in healthcare outcomes for communities of color across five clinical areas with major health disparities — pregnancy, cancer, infectious diseases, chronic conditions, and behavioral health.
In addition to her role with the Health Equity Accelerator, Dr. James is an emergency medicine physician and serves as vice president of mission at Boston Medical Center. She is also the director of the Violence Intervention Advocacy Program at BMC.
In the News
KFF Health News: White House Enlists Doctors and Hospitals to Combat Gun Violence
June 6, 2024 — The White House is calling on hospital executives, doctors, and other health care leaders to take bolder steps to prevent gun violence by gathering more data about gunshot injuries and routinely counseling patients about safe use of firearms. Gun violence prevention advocates applauded the Biden administration for attempting to depoliticize the issue by focusing on its health impacts. The health-centric message also resonates with the public, said Fatimah Loren Dreier, executive director of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, who attended the June 6 event. “The idea that there can be a bipartisan-driven, apolitical way to address the gun violence problem has created tremendous opportunity,” she said.
Research Corner
Firearm Violence Exposure and Functional Disability Among Black Men and Women in the United States
Nearly 60 percent of Black Americans have been exposed to gun violence, and this exposure may be linked to higher rates of disability, according to a study published May 16 in the Journal of Urban Health.
For the study, a team of researchers at Rutgers Health surveyed 3,015 Black Americans about their exposure to gun violence — including being shot, being threatened with a gun, knowing a shooting victim, or witnessing or hearing a nearby shooting — as well as their functional health. More than 40 percent of those who completed the survey reported knowing a shooting victim, while 30 percent of surveyed men and 15 percent of women said they had been threatened with a gun. Four percent of the men and two percent of the women reported having been shot themselves.
Analysis of the survey data revealed that exposure to gun violence was linked to higher rates of disability among both men and women. Among the men surveyed, those who had witnessed or heard a nearby shooting had a 53 percent higher rate of functional disability than those who reported no exposure to gun violence, and they were more than twice as likely to report trouble concentrating, walking stairs, dressing, or bathing. Among the women surveyed, those who had been threatened with a gun had a 48 percent higher rate of functional disability and were more than twice as likely to report difficulty walking, climbing stairs, or running errands than those with no exposure to gun violence.
The researchers say that while their study cannot prove causation, it suggests that being exposed to gun violence may shape functional disability and everyday well-being through mental trauma. They say their findings underscore the critical need for strategies to support the well-being of those who are disproportionately affected by gun violence.
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The HAVI is seeking a Director of Business Development and Administration who will identify, develop, and execute new business opportunities for the HAVI, with a specific focus on fee-for-service contracts and grants that enhance hospital-based and community violence intervention programs.
Visit our website to view the job description, and please spread the word to anyone who might be a good fit!
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