Public Health Educators Host Panel on Gun Violence Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that there were 39,773 gun violence deaths in 2017. The data, shown in the CDC’s Wonder public health database, also indicated that there has been an 18 percent increase in gun violence deaths since 2014.
To raise awareness within its medical community and beyond, the department hosted a Gun Violence Prevention panel that was organized by Viviana Horigian, MD, MHA, and Roderick King, MD, MPH, directors of public health education, in collaboration with public health students at the Miller School.
“Gun violence has become a major public health problem and it is not a problem that is going away. There has been a steep increase in mass shootings over recent years. We should be addressing this public health crisis by using models to understand the problem, identifying the risk factors, developing interventions, testing those interventions, and eventually disseminating the evidence,” said Dr. Horigian, who is also an associate professor of public health sciences at the Miller School.
The panel, which took place at the Lois Pope LIFE Center on May 6 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., featured four guest-speakers from various fields. The speakers included Morris Copeland, director of the Miami-Dade County Juvenile Services Department, Nadege Green, a reporter at WLRN, Judy Schaechter, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and Fred Wright, legislative co-lead at Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
“This is a panel that we had specifically designed to help raise awareness around gun violence in Florida, South Florida and nationally. We spent a lot of time trying to think about how to frame the discussion for people at UM, realizing that there was a very diverse audience that would probably be in the room,” said Dr. King, director of the MD/MPH program and a professor of public health at the Miller School.
Throughout the discussion, the panelists provided insight based on their professional and personal experiences and focused on finding a middle ground between gun violence prevention and gun control.
Director Copeland focused on the benefits of mentorship and Green emphasized the importance of connecting with people from underserved communities. From physician and patient standpoints, Dr. Scaechter spoke about the importance of asking questions and Wright on joining advocacy groups, like Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action. There was also a Q&A portion between the speakers and attendees.
“I enjoyed the personal perspectives of the panelists, like Nadege’s and Director Copeland’s since they are from the Liberty City and Overtown areas themselves. I liked how they emphasized the importance of integrating in different communities to understand the different dynamics,” said Tanya Thomas, a medical student at the Miller School.
“It is definitely important to ask our patients and people who we’re interviewing if they have access to guns, or if their children do. This can lead to some counseling along the way. I’m hopeful that we can incorporate this in health fairs when we are working in different communities,” added Alessandra Della Port, who is also a medical student at the Miller School.
The Department of Public Health Sciences has been committed to fostering avenues for advocacy, such as by hosting panels on various public health topics. Previous panels have focused on the immigration crisis, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, as well as on the treatment options to combat the opioid epidemic.
To watch the Gun Violence Prevention panel, please visit the University of Miami: Department of Public Health Sciences Facebook page.
Written by Amanda Torres
May 29, 2019
