Online Program

Oral

The Martha May Eliot Forum (MMEF) will focus on the science and need for additional research, innovative approaches, and national campaigns to prevent gun violence in America. In 2013, in response to the shooting of twenty children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, members of the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA) formed the MCH Gun Violence Prevention Work Group (MCH GVPWG). With full support from the MCH Section Leadership, our focus has been on developing a “Call-to-Action” to mobilize individuals, families, and communities; and, local, state and federal governments to proactively prevent further gun violence. “Call-to-Action” Goals include: • Protecting our children, families and communities through science/evidence-based approaches; • Forging sustained community partnerships with families, schools, and faith-based organizations, public health, public safety, health, law, and education practitioners, citizens groups, and politicians; and, • Making a difference in every community through prevention practices and policy change. The “Call-to-Action” will focus on national, state and community-based actions that include promoting and addressing issues such as societal antecedents to gun violence, brain health (mental health), gun availability and liability; and, eliminating tolerance of violence in society through collaborations with law enforcement, state and local officials, health professionals, media, and industry to build community coalitions around violence prevention. In order to advance our “Call-to-Action” and building on the work of the MCH GVPWG and other APHA Sections’ scientific sessions, the MCH Section intends to work with APHA to promote partnerships with other national organizations involved in violence prevention. The goal of these partnerships is to promote evidence-based community-activation strategies and policy solutions that will enable communities to build cross-sector partnerships to prevent gun violence and create healthier safer communities for our children and their families.

Session Objectives: Identify challenges to overcoming the barriers that affect critical science exploration and policy decisions regarding gun violence at the local, national, and/or global level. Identify at least one approach for developing an evidence / community-based initiative to reduce/eliminate gun violence at the local level.