Published on July 11, 2016
Before the horrific mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, before the U.S. Senate filibuster and House sit-in, and before the American Medical Association’s call for more federal funding into gun-violence research, two UW Medicine doctors were quietly conducting a rare study – without federal dollars – into what happens to gunshot victims after they are treated and leave Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
New research by Drs. Fred Rivara and Ali Rowhani-Rahbar indicates that gunshot survivors are four times more likely to die from a firearm injury than other patients. Their research is trying to change this statistic and the quality of life of their patients. Recently they launched a crowdsourcing site to further research into how to improve safe storage in households with firearms.
Rivara is a University of Washington professor of pediatrics and adjunct professor of epidemiology; Rowhani-Rahbar is a UW assistant professor of epidemiology and adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics. Both conduct studies for Harborview Medical Center’s Injury Prevention & Research Center.
Listen to a podcast (12:28) of the two researchers discussing the topic.
(Originally published by HSNewsBeat)