A new research consortium focused on addressing firearm deaths among children and teens was recently awarded $5 million by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development – the largest financial commitment to firearm injury reduction by the NIH in 20 years.
Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center’s Violence Prevention section lead Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, M.D., PH.D., MPH, and core member Fred Rivara, M.D., MPH, are among the more than 20 researchers in the consortium. The group, called the Firearm-safety Among Children and Teens Consortium (FACTS), spans 12 universities and health systems nationwide.
“The large problem of gun violence, as it affects children and adolescents in the U.S., cannot be solved without an interdisciplinary group of scientists coming together to bring their individual expertise to develop solutions to this complex issue,” Rivara said in a release from University of Michigan’s Health Lab.
The five-year consortium will focus on setting a research agenda, completing five research projects, creating a data archive on childhood firearm injury, training new researchers and developing a webinar series to educate injury science researchers.
Read more at the University of Michigan Health Lab.