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  • NEWS FEATURE

Gun violence is surging — researchers finally have the money to ask why

With historically high levels of new funding, US gun-violence research is starting to find its footing.
  1. Nidhi Subbaraman
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Mourners place a candle at a makeshift memorial outside Gold Spa, Georgia, US, where eight people were shot and killed

People light candles at a memorial to three women who were shot by a gunman at a spa in Atlanta, Georgia, in March. Credit: Chang W. Lee/NYT/Redux/eyevine

Maeve Wallace has studied maternal health in the United States for more than a decade, and a grim statistic haunts her. Five years ago, she published a study showing that being pregnant or recently having had a baby nearly doubles a woman’s risk of being killed1. More than half of the homicides she tracked, using data from 37 states, were perpetrated with a gun.

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Nature 595, 486-488 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01966-0

References

  1. Wallace, M. E., Hoyert, D., Williams, C. & Mendola, P. Am. J. Obstet. Gynecol. 215, 364.e1–364.e10 (2016).

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  2. Stark, D. E. & Shah, N. H. JAMA 317, 84–85 (2017).

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  3. Gunnell, D. et al. Int. J. Epidemiol. 36, 1235–1242 (2007).

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  4. Kreitman, N. Br. J. Prev. Soc. Med. 30, 86–93 (1976).

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  5. Health Management Associates. Cost Estimate of Federal Funding for Gun Violence Research and Data Infrastructure (HMA, 2021); available at https://go.nature.com/3ztcsjf

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