Firearm violence and health advisories

I will admit that I’ve been sitting on this one for a couple of months as I have no interest in sensationalizing any acts of violence, even inadvertently. But it also seems like not too much time passes before firearm violence (yet again) makes front page news, so I guess this topic may be more of a constant than anyone would prefer.

At the end of June 2024, the surgeon general issued an advisory on firearm violence, declaring it a public health emergency (you can check out the coverage by the American Hospital Association [AHA], which includes links to the advisory). This advisory followed a meeting held at the White House to discuss gun violence and included highlighting hospitals’ role on the frontlines in treating victims of gun violence, the implementation of hospital-based violence intervention programs, and operating gun safety initiatives. The curious thing about all this is that when I went to the AHA website and clicked on the link to the advisory, none of the links to the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) appear to work. I did a Google search (“surgeon general advisory firearm violence”) and found plenty of news stories about the advisory, but nothing on the HHS website. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what to make of this—I can’t imagine that there would be a time limit on such announcements, and I don’t know that I’ve seen anything to make me think that the public health emergency has been discontinued. At this point, there was a survey asking me about my experiences with the HHS website, so I noted the links weren’t working.

So, as I am wont to do, I started with the HHS homepage and, lo and behold, I was able to navigate to the webpage that provided information on the surgeon general’s advisory and found that the links to the advisory were once again working. Somebody must have been monitoring the experience survey results. You might find this a good starting point.

For me, the most startling piece of data presented is that while deaths of children and adolescents from motor vehicles accidents are down precipitously, lately there has been a spike in deaths of the same age group involving firearms. I think I intuited the shift, but perhaps not to the degree it appears.

At any rate, there are downloadable graphics, the details of the advisory, as well as a video from the surgeon general. The usefulness of each will vary depending on the circumstances, but it’s never bad to have another resource for information, especially data.

As noted by the AHA, we are on the frontlines, which brings its own set of risks, but working together will hopefully bring about the change we need.

About the Author: Steve MacArthur is a safety consultant with The Chartis Group. He brings more than 30 years of healthcare management and consulting experience to his work with hospitals, physician offices, and ambulatory care facilities across the country. He is the author of HCPro's Hospital Safety Director's Handbook and is an advisory board member for Accreditation and Quality Compliance Center. Contact Steve at stevemacsafetyspace@gmail.com.