California Funding Gives Small Boost to Firearms Research: Physicians Ponder How to Reduce Gun Violence Risk for Their Patients

Abstract

The California legislature has awarded $5 million to study the causes and consequences of gun violence and the effectiveness of existing laws to prevent it, several important drops in the bucket for an area of research that has suffered for 2 decades from a ban on federal funding. The handful of investigators in firearms injury research—who tend to be emergency physicians or epidemiologists—have received their funding from foundations or, more recently, a trickle from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). President Obama used an executive order in 2013 to counteract a 1996 congressional ban on federally funded firearms research (specifically, research supporting gun control). However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Injury Prevention Center still has not resumed its support of gun violence work. In its most recent round of grants, CDC provided $30 million to study injury prevention, but none of it went to work directly related to firearms. Critics, including a former director of the center, have suggested that the agency’s leaders are worried Congress will yank funding from CDC if it touches the politically sensitive firearms issue. CDC officials did not respond to an e-mail request for comment. Meanwhile, the president’s proposed 2017 budget included $10 million for gun violence research for the CDC’s Injury Prevention Center. The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) joined the American Medical Association and 139 other medical organizations in a letter asking House and Senate appropriations committees to restore the funding. Even the author of the funding ban, former Republican Congressman Jay Dickey (R-Ark), has since publicly stated his support of federal funding for some areas of gun violence research. Congress, however, chose not to include the $10 million in its final budget, although there is some money to expand the National Violent Death Reporting System to an additional 7 states (to a total of 39). California’s $5 million was approved as part of its annual budget and establishes a firearms violence research center. It is expected to be housed at the University of California–Davis, where Professor of Emergency Medicine Garen Wintemute, MD, MPH, has maintained a small but significant research effort for 30 years, keeping it going at times with his own money. The University of California will decide how the money will be doled out. Faculty at all University of California campuses may be able to apply to use some of the money, according to news accounts of a July University of California regents meeting. Dr. Wintemute said the research center funding had its origins in fall 2015 when he was speaking with state Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis) and her chief of staff about gun violence and the need for better understanding about the effectiveness of interventions to reduce it. A bill was the product of that conversation and eventually approved by California’s senate. The concept was then picked up as part of the state budget process and agreed to by the governor and legislature. The funding is for $1 million a year for 5 years. The timing was important, Dr. Wintemute said, so the resulting research center can recruit people to work there and be able to ensure they will have a job for several years.