New guidelines educate health care professionals about how to help prevent firearm injuries.

Each year, approximately 40,000 people in the United States die because of guns, making firearm-related injuries a leading cause of death for adults and children. According to a recent report, gun violence surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, making 2020 one of the nation’s deadliest years for firearm-related casualties on record.

Health care professionals could help reduce the toll, but only about 20% receive any education on their role in firearm injury prevention. With a goal of changing that, a group of scientists, physicians, and educators from across the country—a significant number of whom are firearm owners—established new guidelines on educational priorities regarding firearm injury prevention training for health care professionals. The guidelines appear in the journal Academic Medicine.

“Our job as clinicians is to help patients stay healthy,” says Megan Ranney, a Brown University professor of emergency medicine who was the senior author of the study and served as a mentor and advisor on the project. “We ask and counsel about a lot of things ranging from diet to smoking to seat belts to pool safety. Yet study after study has shown that we do not do that for firearm injury.”

When providers have thoughtful, culturally competent conversations with patients and families about firearms, Ranney says, they can change behavior to increase safety. Research shows that after a conversation with a pediatrician about firearm injury prevention, parents are more likely to store guns safely, for example; another study showed that violence intervention programs can help reduce injuries among young trauma patients admitted to hospital after shootings or stabbings.

Read the full article about clinicians talking about gun violence by Corrie Pikul-Brown at Futurity.