UCLA researchers awarded $596,000 grant by national collaborative on gun violence research to address gaps in gun use and help improve policiesAugust 06, 2020 Ninez
Ponce, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research,
and Michael
Rodriguez, professor and vice chair in the Department of Family Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, have been awarded a three-year, $596,171 grant by the
National Collaborative for Gun Violence Research to advance knowledge on gun
violence related to firearm ownership, storage practices, and perceptions of
gun safety, and fill critical data gaps about risk factors for gun suicide and
urban gun violence related to understudied and disproportionately impacted
subpopulations such as youth/young adults, veterans, immigrants, and LGBT
people.
Ponce and
Rodriguez’s study is among $7.5 million in grants announced by the Collaborative
for 15 research projects that will produce evidence for improving gun policy in
America. The grants build on a recent revival of gun violence research funding.
In July 2019, the Collaborative awarded an initial round of $9.8 million to 17
research projects. Then, for the first time in more than 20 years, the federal
government committed $25 million to support gun violence research at the end of
2019.
“Research has a critical role to play in informing effective gun
policy,” said Rodriguez, who serves as co-director of the UCLA Firearm Violence
Prevention Center. “We are excited to be part of this new wave of gun policy research,
especially given the rigorous standards set by the Collaborative.”
Ponce and Rodriguez’s study was selected from among 48 full proposals invited by the Collaborative
after receiving 238 letters of interest responding to its proposal request.
This research is aimed at improving the understanding of
socioeconomic, demographic, and environmental risk and protective factors
associated with gun ownership, firearm storage practices, and nonfatal suicidal
behavior in California by adding a firearms module in the 2021 and 2022 California
Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the largest population-based
state survey in the nation, which annually collects information on 20,000
adults and adolescents representative of the diverse California
population.
Attached to over 200 questions on sociocultural domains,
social determinants of health, mental health, suicide ideation and health
status, health access and health behavior, and neighborhood safety and social
cohesion, the CHIS will identify intervenable individual, family, and
neighborhood factors associated with risk factors for gun homicides and
suicides. The data will be made available to researchers and the public through
multiple dissemination tools, including policy briefs on gun issues in key
population groups: youth and young adults, immigrants, LGBT, and veterans.
Ponce,
the principal investigator of CHIS and a health researcher with more than 25
years of experience, recognizes the complexity of gun violence and its impact
on the health of the nation’s communities.
“Taking
a public health approach is vital in addressing the root causes of violence and
how they contribute to the devastating premature deaths of thousands of people
in the U.S. each year,” Ponce said.
Collaborative
Director Andrew Morral noted that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, both sales of
firearms and deaths from gun violence have increased across the
country—underscoring the urgent need for rigorous research that can inform
effective gun policy. “We must answer the question: What works and what doesn’t
to reduce gun violence?” Morral said. “Studies like Dr. Ponce and Dr.
Rodriguez’s fill a critical gap in our understanding of gun violence and how to
prevent it.”
“We
selected these research projects based first and foremost on their scientific
rigor,” said Frank M. Clark, chair of the Research Advisory Committee and past chair
of the Chicago Board of Education. “That is the only way to generate the
evidence necessary for informing policy that both protects the public and
preserves the rights of responsible gun owners.”
Gun violence is
one of the five leading causes of death among Americans aged 1-64 and yet,
compared with other major causes of death and injury, the federal government
has invested far less in research to prevent gun violence than for other
leading causes of death.
The Collaborative
funds rigorous scientific research with direct relevance to firearm-violence
reduction in the United States. It was seeded with a $20 million gift from
Arnold Ventures and has been supported by contributions from other
organizations, including Wells Fargo, Missouri Foundation for Health, the
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. For
more information, go to www.ncgvr.org.
The UCLA Center for Health
Policy Research is one of the nation's leading health policy research
centers and the premier source of health policy information for California. The
Center improves the public's health through high quality, objective, and
evidence-based research and data that informs effective policymaking. The
Center is the home of the California Health
Interview Survey (CHIS) and is part of the UCLA Fielding School of Public
Health. For more information, visit healthpolicy.ucla.edu.
The David Geffen School of Medicine is an
internationally recognized leader in research, medical education, and patient
care. It includes 2,000 full-time faculty members, almost 1,300 residents, more
than 750 medical students and almost 400 Ph.D. candidates.
The UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, founded
in 1961, is dedicated to enhancing the public's health by conducting innovative
research, training future leaders and health professionals from diverse
backgrounds, translating research into policy and practice, and serving our
local communities and the communities of the nation and the world. The school
has 690 students from 25 nations engaged in carrying out the vision of building
healthy futures in greater Los Angeles, California, the nation and the world.
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