Take public health approach to reduce gun violence
As gun violence continues to rise, our city leaders keep searching for answers to this complex problem. If these leaders consider the observations listed below, reported in an Aug. 7 article in this paper (“‘Murder is sticky’: Mapping homicides in Hampton Roads — and understanding their toll”), their decisions will be better informed:
“Murder tends to happen in the same places and to the same people . ... If one of your buddies has been the victim of gun violence, it dramatically increases your likelihood.” — Jeff Asher, national criminal justice data analyst at AH Datalytics
“For residents in communities with very few resources, possessing a gun offers a way to feel empowered. In so many ways, we’ve created a system that gives people very few choices, and then we blame them for not choosing another path that wasn’t even available to them.” — Cassandra Newby-Alexander, history professor and dean at Norfolk State University.
Taking the two statements together provides a conclusion respected gun violence prevention blueprints across the country have reached: Gun violence is place-based and committed by individuals feeling disempowered due to lack of resources and opportunities available to them in their community and situation. Simply put, gun violence hot spots often are in concentrated, segregated areas of poverty where opportunity and mobility are in short supply. The criminal justice deterrence, nightclub closings and intervention protocols are popular solutions but fail to address the root causes of the problem. These are “downstream” interventions while “upstream” interventions address root causes.
“Downstream” interventions focus on things such as individual behavior change and treatments for illness. “Upstream” interventions focus on the social factors that contribute to health and prevent illness such as housing, employment and education. Without upstream attention to keeping population groups from falling into the river of violence, the downstream task of pulling individuals out of the water becomes overwhelming.
Doesn’t it make sense to identify the community hot spots, determine what inequity or inequities contribute to feelings of disempowerment, and facilitate change? This is accomplished using the public health approach to gun violence prevention developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
We are experiencing a gun violence pandemic. There is a growing recognition that gun violence prevention requires a public health-led approach, that violence can be understood much as we understand a preventable disease.
The public health approach starts with gathering data, conducting research and promoting collaboration across multiple sectors to address the problem while striving to reduce violence and trauma through evidence-based best practices that mobilize residents, multiple government departments, the business sector, faith community, nonprofits, neighborhood groups, school districts and more.
The actions of these multiple sectors shape our communities. Preventing violence and healing our region requires collective impact across sectors to improve the community environments where we live and play, learn, work and receive care. Our forward progress also requires building collective capacity for effectiveness and sustainability. With this understanding, the goals of a Hampton Roads blueprint are organized by community environments and explicitly state actions various sectors can take to increase resilience factors (factors that protect against violence) and reduce risk factors (factors that increase the likelihood of violence). By naming specific sectors, it is not about placing sole responsibility, but is instead about increasing investment and coordination between sectors.
If gun violence prevention is to be seriously addressed, it will take leadership that realizes there is no easy, “silver bullet” solution. Leadership that will courageously identify and address the inequity in our region. Leadership that is willing to take a comprehensive public health approach to this serious problem through promoting and facilitating partnership with multiple sectors of our communities. This strategy has been successfully used in a variety of urban settings across the United States. It can work in Hampton Roads as well!