Content Warning: This story contains mentions of gun violence and death.
Recent research at the Feinberg School of Medicine is framing gun violence as a public health crisis, focusing on the holistic social conditions — such as unemployment, poverty and more — that lead to self-inflicted injury or assault by firearms.
In January, Northwestern faculty released a new dashboard in partnership with the Illinois Department of Public Health to track violent deaths and nonfatal instances of gun violence in Illinois.
“If we just look at the fatalities, we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg, but there’s a much bigger public health issue just with firearm injury more generally,” Feinberg Prof. Maryann Mason said.
Mason manages the Illinois Violent Death Reporting System, which supplies data to the dashboard on not only who was involved and where the incident happened, but also what injury occurred and why.
Her previous research included an analysis of homicide deaths in Chicago from 2015-21 and found an increase in the average age of victims and the number of non-Hispanic Black women killed in gun-related homicides.
She said these findings suggest women may be becoming more involved with violence generally, both as victims and perpetrators.
“The line between a violence perpetrator and being a violence victim is very thin,” Mason said. “Most of the people we have in our data set are kind of straddling that line. They’ve perpetrated violence in the past, but they also are victims of it.”
Mason said research should be more “open-minded” about including responsible gun ownership as a part of a solution to the public health crisis.
“I don’t think our rhetoric of removal of all guns has gotten us very far, and I really think we need to start to address (the issue) more from a public health point of view,” Mason said. “How can we promote responsible ownership for those people who choose to have a firearm in their home?”
One method, she said, is safe storage.
Feinberg implemented a safe storage program in 2024 using a $3.3 million award from the National Institutes of Health, enabling physicians to provide counseling and distribute free firearm storage locks to patients who need them.
Feinberg Prof. Rinad Beidas was the lead author of a September 2024 paper that found physicians were more likely to discuss responsible gun ownership with patients if they received “nudge plus facilitation,” or “nudge+.”
Medical systems that adopt a “nudge+” approach add a note to patients’ charts in the electronic health record system to remind physicians to discuss safe firearm practices — and provide them with guidance about having those conversations.
“We know we can save lives, and this study offers insights on how to scale this approach nationally,” Beidas said in a September 2024 news release. “This is a call to action.”
Feinberg Prof. Anne Stey, a trauma surgeon, said one of the major challenges medical professionals face when treating traumatic injury is creating a sense of trust with their patients, who are often part of communities historically wronged by the medical system.
In order to increase trust, she emphasized the importance of following through with promises and listening to patients directly.
“It’s important to be there and witness that and to acknowledge their suffering and their pain, even if it’s directed at you,” Stey said.
To this end, Stey said she is researching the implementation of “motivational interviewing” — a technique in which patients set their own goals for alleviating social conditions that increase their risk of gun violence, such as unemployment. Then, they can receive support from medical professionals in achieving those objectives.
As a trauma surgeon, Stey said it is important for her to remember that often after treatment, her patients are returning into the same environment — with little to no change in the conditions that brought them into the traumatic situation in the first place.
“We start to think about the social conditions that would push them to suffer so much that they hurt themselves, their partner or another community member,” Stey said.
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Bluesky: @aknewsom.bsky.social
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