UPDATE (Aug. 2, 2024): A previous version of this story misstated Paul Kinahan’s name.

Fifteen faculty members at the 91̽�� have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences. They are among 36 scientists and educators from across the state . Selection recognizes the new members’ “outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.”

Twelve 91̽��faculty members were selected by current WSAS members. They are:

• , associate professor of epidemiology, of health systems and population health, and of child, family and population health nursing, who “possesses the rare combination of scientific rigor and courageous commitment to local community health. Identifying original ways to examine questions, and seeking out appropriate scientific methods to study those questions, allow her to translate research to collaborative community interventions with a direct impact on the health of communities.”
• , the Shauna C. Larson endowed chair in learning sciences, for “his work in the cultural basis of scientific research and learning, bringing rigor and light to multiculturalism in science and STEM education through STEM Teaching Tools and other programs.”
• , professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, “for her sustained commitment to community-engaged, science-driven practice and policy change related to the prevention of suicide and the promotion of mental health, with a focus on providing effective, sustainable and culturally appropriate care to people with serious mental illness.”
• , the David and Nancy Auth endowed professor in bioengineering, who has “charted new paths for 30-plus years. Her quest to deeply understand protein folding/unfolding and the link to amyloid diseases has propelled her to pioneer unique computational and experimental methods leading to the discovery and characterization of a new protein structure linked to toxicity early in amyloidogenesis.”
• , professor of environmental and occupational health sciences, of global health, and of emergency medicine, who is “a global and national leader at the intersection of climate change and health whose work has advanced our understanding of climate change health effects and has informed the design of preparedness and disaster response planning in Washington state, nationally and globally.”
• , professor of bioengineering and of radiology, who is “recognized for his contributions to the science and engineering of medical imaging systems and for leadership in national programs and professional and scientific societies advancing the capabilities of medical imaging.”
• , the Donald W. and Ruth Mary Close professor of electrical and computer engineering and faculty member in the 91̽��Clean Energy Institute, who is “recognized for his distinguished research contributions to the design and operation of economical, reliable and environmentally sustainable power systems, and the development of influential educational materials used to train the next generation of power engineers.”
• , senior vice president and director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, the Joel D. Meyers endowed chair of clinical research and of vaccine and infectious disease at Fred Hutch, and 91̽��professor of medicine, who is “is recognized for her seminal contributions to developing validated laboratory methods for interrogating cellular and humoral immune responses to HIV, TB and COVID-19 vaccines, which has led to the analysis of more than 100 vaccine and monoclonal antibody trials for nearly three decades, including evidence of T-cell immune responses as a correlate of vaccine protection.”
• , professor of political science and the Walker family professor for the arts and sciences, who is a specialist “in environmental politics, international political economy, and the politics of nonprofit organizations. He is widely recognized as a leader in the field of environmental politics, best known for his path-breaking research on the role firms and nongovernmental organizations can play in promoting more stringent regulatory standards.”
• , the Ballmer endowed dean of social work, for investigations of “how inequality, in its many forms, affects health, illness and quality of life. He has developed unique conceptual frameworks to investigate how race, ethnicity and immigration are associated with health and social outcomes.”
• , professor of chemistry, who is elected “for distinguished scientific and community contributions to advancing the field of electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, which have transformed how researchers worldwide analyze data.”
• , professor of bioengineering and of ophthalmology, whose “pioneering work in biomedical optics, including the invention of optical microangiography and development of novel imaging technologies, has transformed clinical practice, significantly improving patient outcomes. Through his numerous publications, patents and clinical translations, his research has helped shape the field of biomedical optics.”

Three new 91̽��members of the academy were selected by virtue of their previous election to one of the National Academies. They are:

• , professor of atmospheric and climate science, who had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences “for contributions to research and expertise in atmospheric radiation and cloud processes, remote sensing, cloud/aerosol/radiation/climate interactions, stratospheric circulation and stratosphere-troposphere exchanges and coupling, and climate change.”
• , the Bartley Dobb professor for the study and prevention of violence in the Department of Epidemiology and a 91̽��professor of pediatrics, who had been elected to the National Academy of Medicine “for being a national public health leader whose innovative and multidisciplinary research to integrate data across the health care system and criminal legal system has deepened our understanding of the risk and consequences of firearm-related harm and informed policies and programs to reduce its burden, especially among underserved communities and populations.”
• , division chief of general pediatrics at Seattle Children’s Hospital and a 91̽��professor of pediatrics, who had been elected to the National Academy of Medicine “for her leadership in advancing child health equity through scholarship in community-partnered design of innovative care models in pediatric primary care. Her work has transformed our understanding of how to deliver child preventive health care during the critical early childhood period to achieve equitable health outcomes and reduce disparities.”

In addition, Dr. , president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and of the Cancer Consortium — a partnership between the UW, Seattle Children’s Hospital and Fred Hutch — was elected to the academy for being “part of a research effort that found mutations in the cell-surface protein epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which plays an important role in helping lung cancer cells survive. Today, drugs that target EGFR can dramatically change outcomes for lung cancer patients by slowing the progression of the cancer.”

the Boeing-Egtvedt endowed professor and chair in aeronautics and astronautics, will join the board effective Sept. 30. Morgansen was elected to WSAS in 2021 “for significant advances in nonlinear methods for integrated sensing and control in engineered, bioinspired and biological flight systems,” and “for leadership in cross-disciplinary aerospace workforce development.” She is currently director of the Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium, co-director of the 91̽��Space Policy and Research Center and chair of the AIAA Aerospace Department Chairs Association. She is also a member of the WSAS education committee.

“I am excited to serve on the WSAS board and work with WSAS members to leverage and grow WSAS’s impact by identifying new opportunities for WSAS to collaborate and partner with the state in addressing the state’s needs,” said Morgansen.

The new members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences will be formally inducted in September.

Three professors at the 91̽�� have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine in recognition of excellence in the fields of health and medicine, along with a commitment to volunteer service. Election to the Academy is considered one of the most prestigious honors in health and medicine.

Dr. , a professor of epidemiology and of pediatrics; Dr. , a professor of pediatrics; and , an affiliate professor of biochemistry, were among the 100 new members .

“This is a tremendous and well-deserved honor for each of these valued members of the 91̽��community,” 91̽��Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Tricia Serio said. “All three��are all visionary leaders in their vital fields, and their commitment to creating a better world through their work exemplifies the impact we strive for at the University of Washington.”

Dr. Rowhani-Rahbar was recognized for his research on gun violence, which the Academy said has “deepened our understanding of the risk and consequences of firearm-related harm.” His work integrates data from health care and criminal justice systems to better understand risk factors related to gun violence and injury. That research has informed policies and programs aimed at reducing the risk of firearm-related harm, particularly in underserved and overlooked communities.

He is the Bartley Dobb Professor for the Prevention of Violence and interim director of the in the 91̽��School of Medicine.

Dr. Coker heads the General Pediatrics department at Seattle Children’s Hospital and is co-director of the . Her research focuses on eliminating health and health care disparities for Black and Latinx children, as well as families in low-income communities. The Academy cited her leadership in advancing child health equity and work that has “transformed our understanding of how to deliver child preventive health care during the critical early childhood period to achieve equitable health outcomes and reduce disparities.”

She is the founder and former director of the Health Equity Research Program at Seattle Children’s Center for Diversity and Health Equity.

Zeng is executive vice president and director of the in Seattle. The Academy recognized her leadership of a team whose work has led to “transformative understanding of cell type diversity” by generating large-scale, open-access datasets and tools for use in neuroscience research.

Seven 91̽��faculty members have been elected to the Academy in the past four years.

For more information or to contact any of the honorees, email Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu.��

Firearm injury is now the leading cause of death among U.S. children and adolescents. As its toll grows, researchers have focused on stopping violence in the moments before it happens. But new research led by the 91̽�� suggests that interventions made earlier in young people’s lives may reduce the chances of it happening at all.����

The study, , found that UW’s Communities That Care (CTC) prevention system reduced handgun carrying among adolescents growing up in rural areas. By the 12th grade, adolescents in CTC communities were 24% less likely to report carrying a handgun than those in communities without the program. Previous research has shown that handgun carrying is an important risk factor for�� firearm injury and harm.����

“This provides yet another piece of evidence that science-based prevention systems such as CTC are worth further investments and scaling up, in different communities,” said , 91̽��professor of epidemiology and Interim Director of the UW’s . “Findings of this study suggest that community-based, science-based, upstream interventions focused on risk and protective factors early in life may play an important role in reducing firearm-related harm.”��

The study surveyed more than 4,000 adolescents across 24 rural communities, 12 of which implemented a coordinated set of preventive interventions tailored to local priorities. Each year from 6th to 12th grade, researchers asked students about a wide range of behaviors, including whether they’d carried a handgun in the past year.����

Adolescents in communities that implemented CTC were also 27% less likely to report carrying a handgun in a given grade than those in control communities.����

Those findings, Rowhani-Rahbar said, merit deeper research into whether reduced handgun carrying in adolescence leads to a reduced risk of firearm-related violence throughout a person’s life. That’s especially true in rural areas, where the context around firearms may be different than in urban settings.��

Rowhani-Rahbar and his team have produced a of on among adolescents growing up in rural areas. A previous paper showed that about one-third of young males and 1 in 10 females in rural communities have carried a handgun, and that some rural youth began carrying handguns as early as sixth grade.��

“The overall burden of firearm mortality in rural areas is roughly the same as in urban areas, with differences seen in the manner in which it occurs at the population level,” Rowhani-Rahbar said. “Unfortunately, rural communities continue to be under-researched and underserved.”����

Data for this analysis came from an ongoing evaluation of CTC’s effectiveness over the past two decades.����

Developed at the UW, CTC is an evidence-based prevention system that assists communities in using science-based solutions to foster the healthy development of young people. The UW’s Center for Communities That Care is currently helping to implement the system in 150 communities nationwide, in addition to 14 countries.��

The findings on handgun carrying stem from a long-term trial of CTC’s effectiveness. Including more than 4,000 adolescents, that trial has shown that CTC leads to long-term reductions in alcohol and drug use, antisocial behavior and violence beginning in adolescence, among other benefits.����

Reducing gun-related risk was not an explicit goal of CTC. That it did anyway, 91̽��social work professor Margaret Kuklinski said, points to the power of focusing on upstream risk factors to create wide-ranging change in the lives of young people – change that could last a lifetime.����

“Behaviors in adolescence – both positive behaviors and behaviors we want young people to avoid – tend to share risk and protective factors,” said , who is the 91̽��Endowed Associate Professor of Prevention in Social Work and also director of the . “When CTC helps communities implement prevention approaches that, for example, strengthen commitment to school, increase positive activities for young people, reduce family conflict, or strengthen norms against alcohol and drug use, communities can expect to see a variety of positive behavior changes in young people. Now we know that those changes include reduced handgun carrying.”����

Other authors are Sabrina Oesterle (Arizona State University), Emma Gause, Kimberly Dalve, Julia Schleimer (Department of Epidemiology, 91̽��), Elizabeth Weybright (Washington State University), John Briney and David Hawkins (Social Development Research Group, School of Social Work, 91̽��). This research was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.��

For more information on this study, contact Ali Rowhani-Rahbar at rowhani@uw.edu.

The number of U.S. adult handgun owners carrying a loaded handgun on their person doubled from 2015 to 2019, according to new research led by the 91̽��.

Data come from the 2019 National Firearms Survey (NFS), an online survey of U.S. adults living in households with firearms, including nearly 2,400 handgun owners. Compared to estimates from , the new study suggests that in 2019 approximately 16 million adult handgun owners had carried a loaded handgun on their person in the past month (up from 9 million in 2015) and 6 million carried every day (twice as many as carried daily in 2015).

Published Nov. 16 in the American Journal of Public Health, the also found that a larger proportion of handgun owners carried handguns in states with less restrictive carrying regulations: In these states, approximately one-third of handgun owners reported carrying in the past month, whereas in states with more restrictive regulations, only about one-fifth did.

“Between increases in the number of people who own handguns and the number of people who carry every day, there has been a striking increase in handgun carrying in the U.S.,” said lead author , a professor of epidemiology and Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the UW.

Among the other findings reported in the new study:

• About 7 in 10 handgun owners said they carried a loaded handgun as protection against another person, dwarfing the number who said they carried as protection against an animal, for example, or for work
• 4 in 5 handgun owners who reported carrying were male, 3 in 4 were white, and a majority were between the ages of 18 and 44

Researchers pointed to some limitations of the study: Respondents were asked if they carried, and how often, but not where. It is possible that a person residing in a state with one type of permitting restrictions (or none) could have carried their handgun in another state with different laws. The study also did not ask whether the respondent carried a handgun openly or concealed.

While the data are from 2019, researchers say the findings are timely, following . States, in general, have become less restrictive over the years regarding handgun carrying — more than 20 do not require permits to carry today, compared to only one such state in 1990. The differences highlighted in this study suggest that this behavior may be responsive to the types of laws governing carrying that pertain in a state.

“The Supreme Court ruling has already resulted in some states’ loosening of laws related to handgun carrying,” Rowhani-Rahbar said. “In light of that ruling, our study reinforces the importance of studying the implications of handgun carrying for public health and public safety.”

The study was funded by the Joyce Foundation and the New Venture Fund. Co-authors were Amy Gallagher, now of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, previously of the Firearm Injury & Policy Research Program at the UW; Deborah Azrael of Harvard University; and Matthew Miller of Northeastern University.

For more information, contact Rowhani-Rahbar at rowhani@uw.edu.

The first of research led by the 91̽�� into handgun carrying by young people growing up in rural areas has found six distinct patterns for when and how often these individuals carry a handgun.

The patterns, or “longitudinal trajectories,” suggest that youths in rural areas differ in some ways from their urban counterparts when it comes to handgun carrying and provide information for programs designed to help prevent firearm violence and injury.

“Because firearms in many rural areas are such an integral part of a robust gun culture, understanding how youth engage with firearms in those settings is incredibly important,” said principal investigator and senior author��, a 91̽��professor of epidemiology and the 91̽��Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence. “Strikingly, until now there has been almost no research into the longitudinal patterns of handgun carrying in rural areas.”

In these communities, young people carry handguns at nearly twice the rate as in urban settings, the researchers point out. And urban youths and rural youths do not necessarily have the same cultural context, motivations and use of firearms.

“A key takeaway of our study is that about one in three youth in rural areas report carrying a handgun by age 26,” said , lead author and acting assistant professor of pediatrics at the 91̽��School of Medicine who holds a doctorate in economics. “So, this is a prevalent behavior among these youth during adolescence and early adulthood. For those who carry, about half say they did so only one time, but another portion is carrying quite frequently, 40 times or more a year.”

Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this study of handgun carrying among youth in rural areas is based on interviews with roughly 2,000 young people who started answering survey questionnaires in the sixth grade. Participants took repeated surveys over a roughly 15-year period, 2005 to 2019, as part of the UW’s��. That larger study is designed to evaluate the university’s����program, which helps communities take a broad approach to preventing youth problem behaviors.

These study results are the first in a series of related 91̽��studies that are funded by the CDC and part of a wider range of focusing on firearm violence and injury prevention. Investigators at the 91̽��Social Development Research Group, Washington State University, Seattle Children’s Research Institute and Arizona State University collaborated on the current 91̽��study.

The researchers identified these six patterns, which are based on 10 chronological waves of survey data (click on each image for a description):

The researchers add that in these patterns of carrying that emerged over the 10 nearly annual waves of surveys, some participants reported first carrying at an early age, as young as 12 years old. Consequently, they said, educating young adolescents about firearms, firearm violence, injury and conflict resolution may be suitable, especially if it connects to the firearm culture of that community.

“Certainly this behavior is very episodic, but adolescence is the age when other behaviors such as bullying and physical violence emerge,” said Ellyson, who is also a principal investigator at Seattle Children’s Research Institute . “Carrying a handgun concurrently with bullying or physical violence may increase the risk, and those behaviors could escalate into more severe violence. More research is needed to measure the potential consequences and health risks of handgun carrying.”

The study emphasizes that nearly all current interventions focused on handgun carrying are related to crime, which may not work for most youth in rural settings, where handgun carrying may occur with different motivations, circumstances and consequences.

“Before this study, we knew that there is a certain fraction of youth in rural areas who carry handguns,” said Rowhani-Rahbar, co-director of the at the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center. “But with this study, we provided evidence that there are distinctive and different patterns of handgun carrying. The discovery of these patterns in rural areas is the first step toward prevention, because knowing when this behavior starts as well as its frequency and duration may provide important points of intervention for injury prevention.”

In 2020, for the first time in nearly 30 years, the CDC����$7.8 million in funding for more than a dozen national studies to understand and prevent firearm violence. The UW’s proposal to study handgun carrying among rural adolescents was awarded roughly $1.5 million. The current study is one of four areas of focus in the UW’s proposal and involved surveys from 12 communities across 7 states: Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

Next, the 91̽��researchers will focus on improving understanding of the cultural context of handgun carrying among young people in rural areas. What are the reasons they pick up a handgun? What are the settings in which they do? What does “carrying” a handgun mean to them? After that, the researchers hope to examine what happened before a person carried and what happened after. What were the consequences? Finally, they hope to test the effectiveness of the Communities That Care prevention program.

“There is a very strong safety culture around the use of firearms in rural areas, and some of these young people are very well exposed to and trained in the safe use and handling of firearms, but some of them are not,” said Rowhani-Rahbar. “This type of research really sheds light on the fact that you have to think about context, you have to think about setting, you need to consider community-based factors that should drive and inform the prevention efforts that you design.”

Co-authors are Emma Gause and Julia Schleimer, with the Firearm Injury and Policy Research Program, 91̽��Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center; Vivian Lyons, with the 91̽��Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center and the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan; Schleimer, also Department of Epidemiology, 91̽��School of Public Health; Margaret Kuklinski, John Briney and Kevin Haggerty, Social Development Research Group, 91̽��School of Social Work; Sabrina Oesterle, Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center, School of Social Work, Arizona State University; and Elizabeth Weybright, Department of Human Development, Washington State University.

###

For more information, contact Rowhani-Rahbar at rowhani@uw.edu.

Brian Donohue, public information editor at 91̽��School of Medicine, contributed to this story.

A specific police action, an arrest or a shooting, has an immediate and direct effect on the individuals involved, but how far and wide do the reverberations of that action spread through the community? What are the health consequences for a specific, though not necessarily geographically defined, population?

The authors of a looking into these questions write that because law enforcement directly interacts with a large number of people, “policing may be a conspicuous yet not-well understood driver of population health.”

Understanding how law enforcement impacts the mental, physical, social and structural health and wellbeing of a community is a complex challenge, involving many academic and research disciplines such as criminology, sociology, psychology, public health and research into social justice, the environment, economics and history.

“We needed a map for how to think about the complex issues at the intersection of policing and health,” said lead author , a recent doctoral graduate from UW’s Department of Epidemiology who worked on this study as part of her dissertation.

So, Simckes said, she set out to create a conceptual model depicting the complex relationship between policing and population health and assembled an interdisciplinary team of researchers to collaborate.

“This model shows how different types of encounters with policing can affect population health at multiple levels, through different pathways, and that factors like community characteristics and state and local policy can play a role,” said Simckes, who currently works for the Washington State Department of Health.

The study, in early June in the journal Social Science & Medicine, walks through the various factors that may help explain the health impacts of policing by synthesizing the published research across several disciplines.

“This study provides a useful tool to researchers studying policing and population health across many different disciplines. It has the potential to help guide research on the critical topic of policing and health for many years to come,” said senior author , an associate professor in the 91̽��Department of Epidemiology

For example, the study points out when considering individual-level effects that “after physical injury and death, mental health may be the issue most frequently discussed in the context of police-community interaction … One U.S. found that among men, anxiety symptoms were significantly associated with frequency of police stops and perception of the intrusiveness of the encounter.”

Among the many other research examples explored in the new model, the researchers also examine the cyclic nature of policing and population health. They point out that police stops tend to cluster in disadvantaged communities and “saturating these communities with invasive tactics may lead to more concentrated crime.” Consequently, it may be “impossible” to determine whether police practices caused a neighborhood to experience more crime or if those practices were in response to crime. However, the model’s aim is to capture these complex “bidirectional” relationships.

“Our model underscores the importance of reforming policing practices and policies to ensure they effectively promote population wellbeing at all levels,” said Simckes. “I hope this study ignites more dialogue and action around the roles and responsibilities of those in higher education and in clinical and public-health professions for advancing and promoting social justice and equity in our communities.”

Co-authors include Dale Willits, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, WSU; Michael McFarland, Department of Sociology, Florida State University; Cheryl McFarland, Central Jersey Family Health Consortium, New Jersey; Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, Department of Epidemiology and Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, UW.

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To speak with Simckes, contact Jake Ellison at Jbe3@uw.edu.

Providing economic relief to struggling families can lead to another positive effect — fewer cases of child neglect, according to new research by the 91̽��.

A 10% increase in a common benefit for low- to moderate-income working families, the Earned Income Tax Credit, led to a 9% decrease in the annual number of reports of child neglect made to child welfare agencies over a 14-year study period. That’s a significant impact, researchers say, and can inform future social policies.

The study is relevant to current policy actions, as President Joe Biden has recently proposed an as part of his new stimulus plan.

“The EITC is an important part of the U.S. safety net that has been shown to substantially reduce child poverty. Our results add to growing evidence that policies that improve family economic security can also prevent child maltreatment,” said , a doctoral student at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the UW.

She is lead author of the published Jan. 19 in the journal Child Maltreatment.

Child maltreatment is a common problem in the United States, with an estimated subject to a child protective services investigation before they turn 18. The stress of poverty has been linked to child abuse and family instability, and other research has explored the impact of different economic policies on child-abuse prevention. The 91̽��study is the first to focus on the Earned Income Tax Credit – a program designed to assist lower-income families, often with a tangible benefit in the form of a tax refund – and its potential association with reports of child maltreatment made to child welfare agencies across the U.S.

The is provided by both the federal government and 28 states, and eligibility and credit size vary with income and family size. 91̽��researchers focused on the generosity of refundable state EITCs, noting that such a benefit has been found .

The research team analyzed the number of child abuse and neglect reports to local and state agencies from 2004 through 2017 and the correlation with the EITC program at the state level. The team hypothesized that the more generous a state’s EITC, the more necessities, such as child care or rent, a family can put the money toward, potentially alleviating some of the stress that can lead to child maltreatment. Over the course of the study period, many states altered their level of benefit as a percentage of the federal tax credit, while others generally held steady. Minnesota, for example, provided an average of 33% of the federal credit, depending on household income, while Oklahoma provided 5% of the federal credit before making its EITC nonrefundable in 2016.

With the child abuse and neglect data, the 91̽��team counted all reports of maltreatment, rather than just those reports that were found to be substantiated, reasoning that . Taking all states into account – those with and without an EITC — during the study period, states averaged nearly 4,400 maltreatment reports per 100,000 children each year.

When annual state EITC benefits were taken into account, the team found maltreatment reports, particularly those of neglect, declined as benefit levels rose: A 10 percentage-point increase in state-level benefits was associated with 241 fewer reports of neglect per 100,000 children. The effect was even more pronounced in the number of neglect reports on children from infancy through age 5, the age range at which .

Put another way, a 10 percentage-point increase in the refundable EITC benefit led to a 9% drop in rates of reported child neglect.

“This study highlights the importance of investigating the impact of social policies on health. Violence is a health issue with multiple forms, such as child maltreatment. An emerging body of evidence is empirically demonstrating that violence prevention can be an added benefit of social policies that were not necessarily enacted with that specific goal originally. This study is the most recent addition to that literature,” said , an associate professor of epidemiology at the UW, director of the Violence Prevention Section at the , and the principal investigator of the that supported this study.

While child neglect showed a trend, the link between EITC benefits and reports of specific types of abuse – physical, sexual and emotional – was not statistically significant. Researchers note that child abuse rates, in general, have declined much more significantly than neglect rates in recent decades, while neglect is found in .

Child neglect, too, may be more distinctly associated with poverty, potentially making some interventions more effective in preventing certain types of maltreatment than others.

“Child neglect often involves the failure of a caregiver to provide children with necessities, such as food, shelter and basic supervision. Additional income provided to families through the EITC can improve parents’ abilities to meet these basic needs,” Kovski said.

Researchers say the findings point to the fundamental value of an economic policy – the EITC – as a child-maltreatment prevention strategy. In other words, proactively improving financial stability among families may mitigate the circumstances that lead to child neglect and abuse.

The study was funded by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Co-authors were of the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the UW; and of the 91̽��Department of Epidemiology; and of�� the 91̽��Department of Epidemiology, the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center and the 91̽��Department of Pediatrics.

For more information, contact Kovski at kovskin@uw.edu.

Talking to people at gun shows about suicide prevention and the risks of unsecured firearms can lead to safe weapons storage, according to a new study.

The research by at the 91̽��, from visits to 18 gun shows and other community events around Washington state last year, found that engaging people in a community-based setting, in an empathetic conversation focused on safety, resulted in more people locking up their firearms.

The results are promising, lead author and Forefront co-founder said, because they show that meeting people where they’re at, physically and psychologically, can lead to behavior change that can prevent tragedy.

“We need to be educating people who own firearms or are considering purchasing them that suicide is a possible risk to take into consideration and to make plans in advance to mitigate these risks. So many people are in crisis today — from youth, to veterans, to our men in economic distress and in relationship turmoil — we are all vulnerable. We need to educate firearms owners, both experienced and new, at the point of purchase and other places we can find them to raise awareness,” said Stuber, an associate professor of social work at the UW.

The published Oct. 20 in BMJ Injury Prevention.

According to and data, about half of all suicides involve firearms. In Washington state, three-quarters of all firearm fatalities are suicides, which most people aren’t aware of when they purchase a firearm, Stuber said. , and . A 2019 Forefront study focused on the potential role of firearms retailers in preventing suicides, by evaluating store owners’ willingness to learn about the issue and train their employees in how to spot and act on suicide warning signs. That study found that many retailers were interested in learning more and adopting prevention strategies among their staff.

The new study tested an outreach strategy created by Forefront known as SAFER, an extension of its multi-faceted program, which offers training, education and locking devices for firearms and medications in communities across Washington.

Forefront’s trained staff and volunteers regularly provide suicide-prevention trainings tailored to students, teachers, parents, veterans, health care workers and pharmacists. In reaching out to visitors to gun shows — who are mostly men, often veterans — Forefront designed the brief, motivational interviewing approach it calls SAFER (Signpost, Assess, Facts, Emotion and Recommend) to both educate and listen with empathy. By talking with a person about their familiarity with issues surrounding suicide and their understanding of the risks of unsecured firearms, the volunteer can deliver a suicide-prevention recommendation that encourages safe firearms storage. The volunteer also provides the person with a free locking device for hand-guns, rifles or AR-15s to take home.

In this study, 1,175 people received the SAFER intervention. They took a short, written survey to assess knowledge of firearms safety and suicide prevention prior to the SAFER conversation. Most SAFER encounters took about 10 to 20 minutes each.

Four weeks later, Forefront emailed a survey to people who received the intervention. Of the 372 who completed the survey, 66% said they now kept their firearms secure at home, a 15 percentage-point increase from the 51% who reported doing so during the pre-intervention survey.

“To my knowledge, this is the first study to assess receptiveness to suicide prevention messages and self-reported change in firearm storage behavior at gun shows,” said , an associate professor of epidemiology and co-director of the at the UW. Prior had focused on clinical or other community settings, including in Washington state. “This study is novel not only due to its outreach to participants in gun shows, but also because of its empathetic approach to engage them in conversations about suicide prevention. It can serve as a model for other regions of the country to use similar approaches and broaden the inclusion of individuals who might be at high risk of suicide in their outreach and prevention programs.”

Initially, people may not think suicide-prevention awareness applies to them, Stuber said. But that’s a key message of the intervention: Life circumstances can and do change. Even if you never have thoughts of suicide, it’s critical to have a plan to protect yourself, your family, even friends or strangers who visit your home by locking up firearms and medications and understanding what to do if you are someone you care about is at risk.

“We’re building on the idea that people want to do the right thing here, but they don’t necessarily know what the right thing is,” Stuber said.

As part of the SAFER intervention, volunteers also offered a locking device for medications. In the pre-intervention survey, 15% of participants said they safely stored medications — a proportion that grew to about 22% afterward, according to the study. Even a modest increase shows a positive impact, Stuber noted, and provides important information for enhancing the strategy going forward. Currently, the emphasis is on locking up firearms, which is the main goal for the audience and the setting.

Forefront continues to improve SAFER to hone in on the demographics of the person receiving the intervention and to tailor the message accordingly, Stuber said. For example, if the individual has children, the volunteer can focus on the risks of a child gaining access to a firearm and emphasizing the need for a fast-access firearm locking device, which participants also receive education about through a raffle at gun shows.

Another key is to expect emotion, Stuber added. People routinely shared personal experiences with suicide or concerns about friends or relatives, which could end up being an opportunity to counsel or provide resources beyond the individual receiving the SAFER intervention.

“We don’t want to firehose people with facts and statistics. We should be listening more than talking,” Stuber said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Forefront has begun offering a “tele-SAFER” intervention, as well, through individualized Zoom sessions facilitated by veterans organizations and nonprofit groups, Stuber said.

The study was funded by a Boeing Global Engagement Grant and the Washington state Legislature. Co-authors were Brett Bass and Morgan Meadows of Forefront; and Anne Massey, a graduate student in the 91̽��Department of Epidemiology.

For more information contact Stuber at jstuber@uw.edu

With roughly 109 people dying every day and many others treated in emergency rooms from firearm-related injuries — which are the second leading cause of death among adolescents — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has, after decades, stepped in to fund critical firearm research.

The CDC on Sept. 23 it would fund 16 studies for a total of more than $7.8 million to understand and prevent firearm violence. The 91̽��’s proposal to study handgun carrying among rural adolescents was awarded a three-year grant totaling roughly $1.5 million.

“These awards were made by the CDC after about three decades with no direct funding for this area of research. They herald an era in which we will collectively work with a variety of stakeholders to reduce the burden of this major population health challenge in our communities and beyond,” said , an associate professor of epidemiology in the 91̽��School of Public Health who is leading the 91̽��study. “This is a historic development and consequential milestone for the field of public health in general, and the science of violence and injury prevention in particular.”

The 91̽��study will focus on rural communities where the high levels of firearm access and mortality, cultural influences, attitudes and risks associated with youth handgun carrying are understudied and underserved.

“Handgun carrying is widely recognized as a key risk factor for firearm-related injury among youth living in urban areas, but our knowledge of the culture, scope and developmental patterns of handgun carrying — as well as its determinants and consequences — among youth living in rural communities is strikingly limited,” said Rowhani-Rahbar, who is also the co-director of the Firearm Injury & Policy Research Program at Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center.��“This new project will build on about two decades of foundational research conducted by our colleagues in the at the 91̽��.”

The 91̽��study will use existing data and collect new data from rural adolescents to:

• Identify opportunities and barriers in firearm injury prevention by improving our understanding of the cultural context of handgun carrying among rural adolescents.
• Determine specific developmental points of intervention by characterizing patterns of handgun carrying in rural communities from early adolescence to young adulthood.
• Examine individual and social-developmental factors that distinguish patterns of handgun carrying in rural communities from early adolescence to young adulthood.
• Test the effect of the Communities That Care prevention system on developmental patterns of handgun carrying among adolescents living in rural communities.

“The goal of this project is to fill this knowledge gap and provide actionable evidence for informing strategies that can prevent firearm-related injury and promote safety among adolescents in rural communities,” said Rowhani-Rahbar.

The study will be conducted through a collaboration with investigators from UW’s Social Development Research Group, Washington State University, Arizona State University and Seattle Children’s Research Institute.

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For more information, contact Rowhani-Rahbar at rowhani@uw.edu.

In the United States, individual state laws barring 18- to 20-year-olds from buying or possessing a handgun make little difference in the rate of homicides involving a gun by people in that age group, a new 91̽�� has found.

“The central issue is that there’s a very high degree of informal access to firearms, such as through family members or illicit channels,” said , the study’s lead author and a doctoral student in epidemiology in the 91̽��School of Public Health. “And we can’t address that kind of availability with age limits.”

The 91̽��study compared homicide rates involving firearms in this age group between five states that increased the minimum age to buy or possess a firearm to higher than the set by the 1994 federal law and the 32 states that did not.

The five states were Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Wyoming. With the exception of Wyoming, these states also increased the minimum age for possession of a handgun. (States that raised age limits before 1994 were not included. Washington was not included for this reason, and the initiative passed in 2018 increasing age limits became law after the study period, which was 1995 to 2017.)

In the study, published Aug. 31 in JAMA Pediatrics, 91̽��researchers found that rates of firearm homicides perpetrated by young adults age 18 to 20 years old were not significantly different in the two groups of states.

Determining what laws do have an effect on homicide rates is paramount, she added, because of the roughly 275,000 homicides involving a firearm during the years studied nearly 36,000 were perpetrated by people in the study’s age range. Because most handguns used in crimes by young adults are acquired from sources unlikely to be affected by age restrictions, “it is not surprising that we found no association” between state laws and homicides, the study said.

Also, Moe emphasized, firearms are the second leading , after motor vehicle crashes.

“It’s incredibly important that we address this major cause of death in young people,” said Moe, who is also affiliated with the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center. And that solution will need to be a countrywide, unified effort to address the “de facto availability” of firearms, especially among youth.

Co-authors include Miriam Haviland and Andrew Bowen, Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center; Ali Rowhani-Rahbar and Frederick Rivara, 91̽��Department of Epidemiology, Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center and the 91̽��Department of Pediatrics. This research was funded by the state of Washington.

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For more information, contact Moe at cmoe2@uw.edu.