The White House is calling on hospital executives, doctors, and other health care leaders to take bolder steps to prevent gun violence by gathering more data about gunshot injuries and routinely counseling patients about safe use of firearms.<\/p>\n

Biden administration officials are hosting back-to-back events Thursday and Friday at the White House for about 160 health care officials, calling gun violence a \u201cpublic health crisis\u201d that requires them to act.<\/p>\n

The strategy also reflects a stark political reality: Congress has been deadlocked on most gun-related legislation for years, with a deep divide between Republicans and Democrats. If Democratic President Joe Biden wants to get anything done quickly, he will need to look outside the Capitol. He has already enlisted educators<\/a> to talk to parents about safe gun storage and community workers<\/a> to help at-risk youth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president has been clear: This is a public health crisis. So, to solve it, we need the leaders from the health care sector,\u201d Rob Wilcox, a deputy director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, told KFF Health News. \u201cThose are the leaders that run the health systems and hospitals that we go to for treatment, and it\u2019s those doctors, nurses, practitioners on the front lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health experts have long described gun violence as a public health crisis, one that disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic residents in poor neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

In 2022, more than 48,000 people were killed by guns<\/a> in the U.S., or about 132 people a day, and suicides accounted for more than half of those deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An additional 200-plus Americans are injured each day, according to estimates<\/a> from Johns Hopkins University research.<\/p>\n

Guns are the leading cause of death for children and teens.<\/p>\n

Gun violence prevention advocates applauded the Biden administration for attempting to depoliticize the issue by focusing on its health impacts. The health-centric message also resonates with the public, said Fatimah Loren Dreier, executive director of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, who planned to attend the June 6 event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that there can be a bipartisan-driven, apolitical way to address the gun violence problem has created tremendous opportunity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But the initiative isn\u2019t just about messaging. It\u2019s about numbers and statistics. Relative to America\u2019s other deadly threats \u2014 such as cancer, HIV, and automobile crashes \u2014 fewer federal dollars<\/a> fund gun violence research, mostly because of politics.<\/p>\n

In 1996, Congress cut federal funding for gun control research by the CDC, essentially shifting the responsibility for funding and conducting the research to the private sector and academia \u2014 and with a fraction of the previous budget. In 2019, Congress reversed course and has since agreed every year to allocate $25 million to the CDC and the National Institutes of Health for gun research, but public health experts say it\u2019s not nearly enough. By comparison, roughly three times that amount was earmarked for research<\/a> on the prevention and treatment of underage drinking in fiscal year 2023, and 10 times as much to Parkinson\u2019s disease research.<\/p>\n

Slashing CDC research funding for firearms created decades-long gaps in data \u2014 and hamstrung efforts to respond to the crisis, researchers and health officials say. For instance, there\u2019s little government data available to researchers on firearms, even basic statistics such as firearm ownership by city and which guns are used in shootings.<\/p>\n

More timely and comprehensive data could give researchers a better understanding of the trends behind gun violence \u2014 and the steps to take to prevent it, said Bechara Choucair, a senior vice president and the chief health officer at Kaiser Permanente, who planned to attend the June 6 White House event.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you want to address a problem with a public health lens, you have to understand the data,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to understand the data at a granular level so you can design interventions and test interventions and see if it works or if it doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House is asking state and local health departments, health systems, and hospitals to boost timely data collection on emergency room visits for firearm-related injuries to \u201csupport state and local jurisdictions in identifying and responding to emerging public health problems,\u201d Wilcox said.<\/p>\n