Dr. Hemenway is the director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center. The injury center is the coordinating center for the National Violent Injury Statistics System whose goal is to help improve available data on suicide and homicide.
Much of Dr. Hemenway's research has been in the area of injury prevention. He has investigated issues concerning motor vehicle injuries, fires, falls and fractures, suicides, child abuse, and product safety. Firearm injuries are a current focus of Dr. Hemenway's research. In the United States, almost 80 people per day are killed with guns. Yet comparatively little research has been directed toward understanding and reducing gun injuries. Dr. Hemenway is studying the effects of gun carrying; how guns are stored and whether training can improve storage practices; the external costs and benefits of gun ownership; the use of guns in self-defense; gun use among adolescents; guns on college campuses; the relationship between gun prevalence and homicide, suicide and unintentional gun deaths; and the effects of changes in the legal drinking age on youth violence.
Dr. Hemenway is an economist. Some of his research involves the extension and testing of microeconomic theory (e.g. the role of positional versus functional goods in society) and the economics of health care (e.g. the relationship between safe behavior and insurance purchase). Dr. Hemenway also writes articles with specific ideas for enlivening the teaching of economics.