Fewer guns in U.S. could mean far fewer suicides
Limiting access to guns could cut the rising suicide rate in the U.S. by over a third, according to recent analysis in the Washington Post. In 2014, nearly 43,000 Americans killed themselves, and half did so with guns,…
Police killings, police deaths a public health issue
Black men, compared to white men, were from five to 19 times at greater risk of a law enforcement-related death over the past 50 years, according to study led by Nancy Krieger, professor of social epidemiology at Harvard…
Gun violence is a public health issue
As the gun control debate reignited following the mass shooting at a nightclub in Florida, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public expert David Hemenway spoke to several news outlets about the state of firearms research. He said that…
Stopping ‘contagion’ of gun violence will require long-term efforts
Deborah Azrael, a gun violence researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, spoke to the Harvard Gazette for a June 14, 2016 article on addressing incidents of mass violence such as the recent night club massacre…
Standing in solidarity with Orlando
In this week’s podcast: The Harvard Chan School community stands in solidarity with the victims of a horrific mass shooting in Orlando, FL.
Gun research faces roadblocks
There are tons of records about guns—who sells them, who buys them, and, if they were used in crimes, when and where—but those records don’t necessarily make it into any database available to researchers. Although evidence suggests that…
Shooting of eight Ohio family members not a typical case
While mass shootings occur fairly often in the U.S., the killing of eight members of a Pike County, Ohio, family April 22, 2016 was not a typical case, Deborah Azrael, director of research at the Harvard Injury Control…
Removing guns from distraught individuals may help curb suicide rate
Friends of distressed individuals can have a role in helping to reduce the nation’s rising suicide rate by showing compassion, optimism, and coaxing the distraught person to store any household guns or medications that they might use to kill themselves inaccessably…
A better surveillance system for tracking police homicides
For immediate release: March 17, 2016 Boston, MA – Official counts of homicides by police seriously undercount incidents, according to a study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, but a relatively new national data system, currently…
Suicides at gun ranges have prompted rules changes
Commenting in the wake of a double suicide at a Massachusetts gun range, Cathy Barber, a researcher with Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center, told the Boston Globe that such events are traumatizing…