Research

Violence Prevention Program at Hospitals Can Prevent Recurrent Harm

A new study found that a hospital-based intervention program can help prevent violence reinjury or recurrence by providing a range of mental health and social support services to gun violence victims. 

While gun violence remains the leading cause of death among children in the United States, most people survive firearm assaults. But these gun violence survivors also face a range of physical and mental health challenges, unmet social needs, and a risk of recurring violence or injury.

A hospital-based program that supports victims of gun and knife violence can reduce the likelihood that those victims will be reinjured or commit violence themselves, according to a new study led by a School of Public Health researcher. 

The findings offer hope for similar programs nationwide and may encourage cities to target investment in them to reduce gun violence, according to lead researcher Jonathan Jay, a BU School of Public Health associate professor of community health sciences. Jay calls the study of the Boston Medical Center (BMC)–founded Violence Intervention Advocacy Program (VIAP) “my most important work,” because of its potential to provide advocates with evidence in support of such efforts: “If we invest more in hospital-based violence intervention programs, will that help cities get their gun violence levels down?” 

For survivors of gunshot and knife wounds treated in the emergency department, VIAP provides post-discharge help with mental health and family support services and assistance, if necessary, with connections to housing, food, employment, education, and other needs. The study found consistent engagement with the program could reduce the likelihood of being revictimized, or committing violence, by 50 percent two to three years after discharge. BMC, BU’s primary teaching hospital, is among more than 60 hospitals in the country with a hospital-based violence intervention program.

“When people’s basic social and emotional needs are met, they are far less likely to be involved in violence,” says Jay. “People who get shot or stabbed are vastly more likely to have been excluded from systems—kicked out of school, kicked out of housing, to have some history of criminal legal system involvement so that it’s harder for them to get a job.”

The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, analyzed the records of 1,300-plus shooting or stabbing survivors, ages 16 to 34, who were at high risk of violence. Almost half of them worked with VIAP sometime in the first month after their discharge, and the researchers found that brief interaction did not appreciably lessen the risk of future violence when compared with patients who never used the program. But the roughly 10 percent of survivors who regularly worked with VIAP in the first two months after discharge saw their likelihood of being involved in violence cut in half. 

“There’s an old saying that hurt people hurt people, and that really applies to the work we do,” says Lavon Anderson, VIAP’s housing coordinator. “VIAP helps prevent future violence by helping people heal from trauma, stabilize their lives, and work toward goals that may not have felt possible before. When people feel supported and hopeful, they’re much less likely to return to cycles of violence.”

Click here to read the full story in The Brink.