While The Pump Handle is on holiday break, we are republishing some of our favorite posts from the past year. This one is from January 2016: : In the midst of another national debate over gun safety regulations, some argue that higher rates of gun ownership will protect people from dangerous strangers with deadly intentions. Physician and public health researcher Michael Siegel set out to study that argument. He ultimately found no relationship between gun ownership and stranger-related firearm homicides. But he did find that gun ownership levels translated into higher homicide risks for one group in particular — women.
The final day at the APHA annual meeting featured speakers addressing long-acting reversible contraceptives, examining news coverage of health, and connecting farmers’ markets to people receiving food assistance.
An in-depth look at how lobbyists squashed an Illinois bill to prevent discriminatory hiring practices in the temp industry; thousands of coal miners in Kentucky rally to save their health benefits and pensions; Chicago gets closer to a sick leave ordinance; and two workers lose their lives in the Bakken oil fields in the span of a few days.
Healthcare workers are the most assaulted workers in the US. A report from the Government Accountability Office provides the numbers, notes which states have laws on the books to address the problem, and highlights the modest actions taken to-date by federal OSHA.
In the midst of another national debate over gun safety regulations, some argue that higher rates of gun ownership will protect people from dangerous strangers with deadly intentions. Physician and public health researcher Michael Siegel set out to study that argument. He ultimately found no relationship between gun ownership and stranger-related firearm homicides. But he did find that gun ownership levels translated into higher homicide risks for one group in particular — women.
Environmental Health
Researchers map risk of gun violence, pinpoint prevention opportunities: ‘No one is destined to meet violence’
Researcher Douglas Wiebe first started studying gun violence as a doctoral student, investigating how having a firearm in one’s home affected the risk of injury. The work only heightened his interest in exploring gun violence from a public health perspective. Eventually, he decided to officially take on a question he’d been mulling over for almost a decade: Among people who’ve experienced a violent assault, are there any commonalities in their experiences just prior to the incident, and can we map those experiences in a way that reveals optimal intervention opportunities?
In a hospital “Code Blue” will shift staff into high gear. “Code Silver” will get their adrenaline pumping, too, but for a very different reason.
Recent pieces address condom innovation and approval, government handouts to the rich, online violence against women and girls, and more.
Public Health Practice
Worth reading: Ebola, family planning and “the conversation that matters most”
Recent pieces address healthcare workers’ safety and the research behind controlling Ebola’s spread; end-of-life planning; contraception; and more.
Gun violence is uniquely an American problem compared to other industrialized countries. Firearm-related fatality rates in the U.S. are four times the rates in other industrially advanced countries. We continue to relegate this social ill it to our criminal justice system when it needs a public health solution.