Public health research on car accidents led to seat belts and collapsible steering wheels. Research on cigarettes led to warnings on packages and smoke-free airplanes.

But there is a dearth of research that could produce the same types of breakthroughs in preventing firearm injuries. Even though tens of thousands of Americans become shooting victims each year, researchers do not have access to essential data to find solutions to this problem. Joyce grantees are working to change that.

“It’s an issue that hasn’t been studied nearly enough,” says David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. “Given the size of the problem, very little funding has been available from federal, state, and local governments or from foundations to really investigate this issue.”

Joyce is supporting Harvard’s research on gun violence with a two-year, $700,000 grant. That money will help answer the questions that remain unanswered because of the lack of comprehensive data.

“When I give talks, the minute people ask more in-depth questions, the answer typically is, ‘We don’t know,’” Hemenway says. “Right now we know what death certificates tell us, but for every death from an unintentional gunshot wound there are probably 25 unintentional nonfatal injuries. We know some broad things about those nonfatal injuries but we don’t really know all sorts of specific things like whether unintentional injuries are indoors or outdoors, self-inflicted or other-inflicted, with long guns or handguns, at home or away from home. Basic stuff we don’t know.”

Late last year the National Academy of Sciences released a report, partially funded by the Joyce Foundation, calling for a major national effort to expand our understanding of gun violence. The report says deficient data and the lack of research make it impossible to draw strong conclusions about the effects of various measures to prevent gun violence.

With a $300,000 grant, the Firearm & Injury Center at the University of Pennsylvania will develop a plan to fill some of the gaps identified in the National Academy of Sciences report. Researchers will develop a series of “roadmaps” designed to answer questions like where youths are most likely to obtain weapons that they use in acts of violence, or how neighborhood environment and youth behavior intersect to influence youth risks for firearm injury.

Since it was established with Joyce support in 1997, the Firearm & Injury Center at Penn has become a national leader in researching gun violence. Rose Cheney, the Center’s executive director, says there is a significant need for reliable data that could lead to methodologically strong research.

“A big issue is the type of data that are available or can be available,” Cheney says. “Information about the gun, such as how firearms are getting to certain population groups, is restricted and not necessarily open to researchers. Good science can’t take place in the absence of valid and reliable data.”

The Firearm & Injury Center at Penn also will conduct research across different disciplines, working with people who are not expert firearms researchers but are able to use their expertise in other areas to provide valuable information on firearm issues. For instance, an engineering professor and a student at Penn are engaged in promising research, examining an engineering solution to hunting-related shootings.

They are attempting to design a system for hunters that would set off an alarm or disconnect the firing mechanism when a rifle crosses the range of a person wearing a safety vest.

Both Harvard and Penn also will provide technical assistance on the National Violent Death Reporting System, a program administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that currently operates in 17 states and could eventually track all of the nearly 50,000 violent deaths that take place each year in the United States. The Violent Death Reporting System is modeled on a Joyce-funded pilot project, the National Violent Injury Statistics System.

“The National Violent Death Reporting System tries to link two sets of data,” Cheney says. “We need to combine the health data—the injury that causes the death—with the police data—the circumstances that surround the crime involved. We have different domains with different interests that we’d really like to bring together.”

Ultimately, Hemenway says, research on gun violence will save lives. But just as it took time for the public to understand the need for seatbelts, it will take time with firearms. And the longer we wait for the research, the longer we’ll have to wait for results.

“I’m optimistic that knowledge matters and science matters,” Hemenway says. “But I’ve learned being in public health for a long time that nothing is as fast as you hope.”

David Hemenway, Harvard Injury Control Research Center, 617.432.3420

Rose Cheney, University of Pennsylvania Firearm & Injury Center, 215.615.0161