How the public health approach can solve gun violence | Megan Ranney | TEDxProvidence
Summary
TLDRThe speaker, a healthcare professional, recounts a life-changing experience treating a young man with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, which led to a quest for understanding and addressing gun violence as a public health epidemic. She dispels common myths and emphasizes the need for a public health approach to gun violence, highlighting the importance of data and research in finding solutions. The speaker shares examples of how this approach has successfully reduced other public health crises like car crashes and HIV/AIDS. She calls for collective action, urging the audience to learn the facts, share personal stories, and join the movement to treat gun violence as a public health issue, with the ultimate goal of creating a safer future for all.
Takeaways
- 🚑 The speaker's experience with a young man's suicide by gunshot led to a deep reflection on gun violence and its prevention.
- 🔍 The physician began asking hard questions about gun access and the prevalence of gun-related suicides, seeking to understand and address the issue.
- 📉 Despite common misconceptions, gun violence is considered a public health epidemic due to increasing numbers, not just a criminal or mental health issue.
- 🏥 As healthcare professionals, the speaker and colleagues have numerous stories of gun violence victims, emphasizing the need for systemic change.
- 📈 Gun death rates are rising, with the majority of incidents not involving mass shootings but rather suicides and everyday violence.
- 🔫 The presence of approximately 330 million guns in the U.S. indicates that most guns are not used to cause harm, suggesting a need for focused solutions rather than generalized blame.
- 🤝 Collaboration between gun owners and non-owners is crucial for developing effective solutions to gun violence.
- 📊 A four-step public health approach (counting, identifying risk factors, creating solutions, and spreading them) has been successful in addressing other epidemics like car crashes and HIV/AIDS.
- 🚫 The Dickey amendment effectively halted federal funding for gun violence research, which has contributed to the lack of progress in addressing the issue.
- 💡 The public health approach can lead to innovative solutions such as promoting safe storage and training healthcare professionals to identify at-risk patients.
- 📖 The speaker calls for education, sharing of personal stories, and collective action to move beyond the gun control debate and towards a narrative of prevention.
Q & A
What was the turning point for the speaker that led them to question gun violence?
-The turning point was when the speaker treated a young man with a self-inflicted gunshot wound who died despite their best efforts. The incident prompted the speaker to start asking hard questions about gun accessibility and the impact on public health.
According to the speaker, what percentage of gun-related deaths are due to suicides?
-The speaker states that two-thirds of gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides.
Why does the speaker argue that gun violence should be treated as a public health epidemic?
-The speaker argues that gun violence should be treated as a public health epidemic because the numbers of gun-related deaths are increasing each year, similar to other public health crises, and it requires a comprehensive, data-driven approach to address effectively.
What is the role of mental health in the overall gun violence epidemic according to the speaker?
-While mental health is a factor in suicides, which make up a significant portion of gun deaths, the speaker emphasizes that mental health plays a miniscule role in the overall epidemic of gun violence.
What is the impact of the Dickey amendment on gun violence research?
-The Dickey amendment effectively halted federal funding for research into gun violence using a public health approach, which has contributed to a lack of progress in understanding and addressing the issue.
What are the four steps of the public health approach to solving epidemics?
-The four steps are: 1) Counting how many people are dying or getting hurt, 2) Identifying what puts them at risk and why, 3) Creating solutions that work, and 4) Spreading those solutions into communities across the country.
How has the approach to car crashes and HIV/AIDS been similar to what the speaker proposes for gun violence?
-Both car crashes and HIV/AIDS were addressed using the four-step public health approach, which includes counting the affected, identifying risks, creating effective solutions, and disseminating those solutions widely. This approach led to significant reductions in deaths from these causes.
What is the current federal funding situation for gun violence research?
-The federal funding for gun violence research is less than 2% of what would be predicted based on the number of people who die each year from gun violence.
What are the three actions the speaker asks the audience to take?
-The speaker asks the audience to 1) Learn and share facts about gun violence, 2) Share their stories to bring the issue into the light, and 3) Join the movement to treat gun violence as a public health problem.
Why does the speaker believe that the public health approach can lead to change?
-The speaker believes that the public health approach can lead to change by creating real solutions based on facts, stories, and evidence, moving beyond the gun control versus gun rights debate, and focusing on prevention.
What is the significance of the speaker's mention of Dr. Christopher Bar Soddy?
-Dr. Christopher Bar Soddy is significant because he is a gun owner, a 4H rifle safety instructor, and the founding CEO of a firm that is dedicated to solving gun violence through a public health approach. His role demonstrates that it is possible to approach the issue from a balanced perspective that respects gun ownership while seeking solutions to gun violence.
Outlines
🔫 The Impact of Gun Violence on a Healthcare Professional
The speaker, a medical professional, recounts a pivotal moment in their career involving a young man with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. This tragic case prompted a series of questions about gun accessibility and the role of healthcare professionals in addressing gun violence. The speaker emphasizes the need to debunk myths and to approach gun violence as a public health epidemic, with a focus on prevention and change. The paragraph also highlights the significant number of suicides and the impact of gun violence across urban and rural areas, affecting various demographics.
📈 A Public Health Approach to Epidemics: Success Stories
The speaker outlines a four-step public health approach to addressing epidemics, which includes counting the affected, identifying risks, creating solutions, and spreading these solutions. This approach has been successful in reducing car crash and HIV/AIDS death rates. The speaker contrasts this with the increasing trend of gun deaths, which has been exacerbated by a lack of federal funding for research since the Dickey amendment. The speaker calls for a similar public health approach to gun violence, emphasizing the potential for change and the importance of moving beyond the gun control vs. gun rights debate.
🤝 A Call to Action: Creating a Movement for Change
The speaker concludes with a call to action, urging the audience to learn and share facts about gun violence, to share personal stories, and to join the movement for change. The speaker highlights the need for unity and real solutions based on facts, stories, and evidence. They express hope for a future where gun violence is treated as a public health issue, with the potential to save lives and create a safer environment for children and communities.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Gun Violence
💡Public Health Epidemic
💡Trauma Room
💡Suicide
💡Mass Shootings
💡Gun Ownership
💡Prevention
💡Federal Funding
💡Healthcare Professionals
💡Safe Storage
💡Public Health Approach
Highlights
The speaker's encounter with a young man who shot himself with his father's gun profoundly impacted their perspective on gun violence.
Gun violence is framed not just as a criminal or mental health issue, but as a public health epidemic with increasing numbers annually.
The reality of gun violence in the U.S. is that over a hundred people die, and over 200 are injured daily, with less than 1% being mass shootings.
Suicides account for two-thirds of gun deaths, highlighting that mental health is only a small part of the overall epidemic.
Contrary to common belief, gun death rates are not higher in urban areas alone; they are almost the same in rural areas.
The highest death rates from gun violence are found in states like Alaska, Alabama, Montana, Louisiana, and Missouri.
Almost two-thirds of gun deaths are among white men, and veterans are also at a higher risk.
There are approximately 330 million guns in circulation in the U.S., with around 40,000 deaths last year.
The speaker emphasizes that demonizing guns or gun owners will not contribute to progress in addressing gun violence.
Dr. Christopher Bar Soddy, a gun owner and emergency physician, is highlighted for his work in addressing gun violence through a public health approach.
A four-step public health approach is proposed to address gun violence: counting the dead and injured, identifying risks, creating solutions, and spreading them to communities.
Examples of successful public health approaches are given, such as the reduction in car crash and HIV/AIDS death rates.
The Dickey amendment is criticized for effectively halting federal funding for public health research on gun violence.
Federal funding for gun violence research is disproportionately low compared to the number of deaths it causes.
The need for a complex solution to gun violence is acknowledged, with the potential for change through a public health approach.
The speaker calls for a movement to approach gun violence as a public health problem, moving beyond the gun control versus gun rights debate.
Three actions are requested from the audience: learn and share facts, share stories to humanize the issue, and join in taking action to address gun violence.
The potential to save lives, including those of the speaker's children and the audience's loved ones, is emphasized as a reason for collective action.
Transcripts
[Music]
early in my career I took care of a
young man who changed my life I got a
call on a warm summer evening over the
radio that EMS was coming in with a
gunshot wound I prepped the trauma room
as I usually do when the ambulance came
in the man had been shot in the head
my team did everything they could but we
were unable to save him and that was
horrible but honestly not particularly
surprising you see we don't save a lot
of gunshot wounds what was memorable to
me was how and why he died he had shot
himself with his father's gun and seeing
his dad at the bedside
that was something I will never forget
that case led me to start asking a bunch
of hard questions how did this boy get
ahold of his dad's gun could we have
changed that and saved his life why
didn't I know that people kill
themselves with guns
how many do that each year and if this
death was preventable how about all the
other gun shots that come through my ER
what are we as healthcare professionals
doing about this now I like every other
physician nurse and social worker across
this country have hundreds of stories of
people we've cared for with gunshot
wounds
kids killed in tragic mistakes young men
caught in the crossfire and people that
are my own colleagues like dr. Tamra
O'Neal an emergency physician who was
shot and killed by her fiance as she was
leaving her work in the ER last fall now
stories matter because they are
memorable because they motivate us but
stories alone are not enough they matter
when they're used to create change to
drive us towards truth and that young
man he drove me to realize that much of
what I thought I knew about gun violence
was actually a myth and he taught me to
strive to do better we as a country have
spent far too long
failing to make progress on gun violence
depending on your perspective you might
think of this as being an issue of
criminals or laws or mental health but
the truth is
although that's what the common
discussion focuses on gun violence is
none of those what it really is is a
public health epidemic now what makes it
an epidemic according to the CDC it's
very clear it's an epidemic because the
numbers are increasing each year now I'm
a mom of two and I'll be honest every
morning when I put my kids on that bus I
say a little prayer that today will not
be the day that a gun man comes to their
school we all live in fear of mass
shootings and that's what most of us
think of about epidemics but in reality
over a hundred people die and over 200
are injured every day across this
country due to gun shots and less than
1% of those are mass shootings 2/3 of
those deaths are suicides and although
mental health is obviously part of
suicide the truth is that mental health
plays a miniscule role in our overall
epidemic another thing that may surprise
you about this epidemic you might think
of it as an urban problem but the truth
is gun death rates are almost the same
in urban and rural areas in fact the
highest death rates are in states like
Alaska Alabama Montana
Louisiana and Missouri another thing
about this epidemic young minority men
are disproportionately affected by gun
violence but the fact is almost
two-thirds of gun deaths in our country
are actually white men and veterans are
at higher risk as well this epidemic is
everywhere chances are that almost all
of you in the audience know someone who
has been affected and here's a really
important fact there are approximately
330 million guns in circulation in the
United States there were around 40,000
deaths last year now that is 40,000
deaths too many but if you do some
really simple arithmetic you'll see that
that means that almost all of the guns
out there are not used to cause harm and
when we demonize guns or gun owners we
will not make progress here's a story
this is a colleague and friend of mine
dr. Christopher bar Soddy he's an
emergency physician like me
he's also a gun owner and a 4h rifle
safety instructor he views gun ownership
as a heritage in honor and a personal
responsibility he is also the founding
CEO of a firm research the country's
only nonprofit dedicated to solving gun
violence through the public health
approach he and I work together not as
gun owners are non gun owners but as
people committed to finding truth and to
putting real solutions in place that can
make a difference for our communities
across this country and when we take
this public health approach when we
approach gun violence as an epidemic we
can then create real solutions based on
real facts now I took care of that young
man in my er just after finishing many
years of training as a medical doctor
public health professional and
researcher I will not bore you with all
the epidemiology and biostatistics say
that there is a four step approach that
we have used over and over across
history to solve public health epidemics
first we count how many people are dying
or getting hurt then we say what puts
them at risk and why then we create
solutions that work and finally we
spread those solutions into communities
across the country when we take this
approach we succeed and I'm going to
share stories of three epidemics here
car crashes hiv/aids and gun violence so
on this graph you'll see the yellow line
is car crashes car crash deaths peaked
in the late 1960s we have now decreased
car crash death rates by approximately
70 percent not by taking cars off the
road right there's actually more cars
more millions of miles driven than ever
before what we did was we used that
four-step public health approach we
discovered things like 3-point seatbelts
keep you safer than a lap belt we
created car seats and got parents to use
them we educated people about drunk
driving
another example is hiv/aids the redline
now ously we discovered HIV in the 80s
and that's quickly peaked we've since
decreased the death rate by almost 90%
again not by banning sex we know that
that doesn't work
instead we use science we discovered the
virus created drugs educated people
about safe sex and we reduce stigma to
allow people to create opportunity and
hope for change now compare that to
firearms that orange line you all
already know gun death rates are going
up and they've been going up inexorably
since the early 2000s why well not
surprisingly that's about the point when
the so called Dickey amendment was
passed which effectively shut down
federal funding for this public health
approach to firearm injury on this graph
the gray line shows that for most
diseases and injuries the amount of
federal funding is basically
proportional to the number of people who
die but gun violence falls off the curve
overall federal funding for gun violence
research is less than 2% of what would
be predicted based on the number of
people who die each year now imagine if
I told you that we've done virtually no
research on cancer or heart disease or
even car crashes since 1996 you'd be
horrified and then you wouldn't be
surprised if I told you that death rates
were going up well same thing for gun
violence now I'm not naive and if you'll
excuse the pun I know there's no magic
bullet to fix this gun violence like any
other disease or injury is complex and
will require complex solutions but using
that four-step Public Health approach
will work and it will allow us to take
into consideration our unique American
context now when we take this public
health approach we create the
possibility for change I have spent the
last 10 years since I took care of that
young man working with folks across this
country first doctors and nurses now the
general public to create a movement for
change for approaching this as a public
health problem when we do that we create
a potential to move beyond the old gun
control versus gun rights debate and
towards a new narrative of prevention a
place where we can put in place
promising solutions like working with
gun shops to promote safe storage or
training healthcare professionals to
help their patients at risk
or talking about drunk shooting which
really is a thing if we had had this
approach in place ten years ago I might
have saved that young man from ever
coming into my emergency department
could have saved the lives of those kids
at Sandy Hook and parkland and the lives
of the hundred people who died and 200
who were injured yesterday and 100 more
who will die and the 200 more who will
be injured tomorrow but I can't do this
alone
I can my network can't do this alone it
takes all of us and so I asked us to do
three things first learn and share the
facts things like what I said today
two-thirds of gun deaths in this country
are suicide there are modifiable risk
factors and the public health approach
works ii share your stories join me and
my colleagues in bringing this epidemic
out of the shadows and into the light
where we have to talk about it and find
real change feel free to contact me
third join us in taking action join us
in this movement for talking about and
changing gun violence as a public health
problem when we do that we can create
unity we can create real solutions based
on facts stories and evidence and we can
create hope for my kids and for yours
thank you
[Applause]
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