Faculty Bibliography

BACKGROUND:In the past decade, more than 300,000 people in the United States have died from firearm injuries. Our goal was to assess the effectiveness of two particular prevention strategies, restrictive licensing of firearms and concealed carry laws, on firearm-related injuries in the US Restrictive Licensing was defined to include denials of ownership for various offenses, such as performing background checks for domestic violence and felony convictions. Concealed carry laws allow licensed individuals to carry concealed weapons. METHODS:A comprehensive review of the literature was performed. We used Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation methodology to assess the breadth and quality of the data specific to our Population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcomes (PICO) questions. RESULTS:A total of 4673 studies were initially identified, then seven more added after two subsequent, additional literature reviews. Of these, 3,623 remained after removing duplicates; 225 case reports, case series, and reviews were excluded, and 3,379 studies were removed because they did not focus on prevention or did not address our comparators of interest. This left a total of 14 studies which merited inclusion for PICO 1 and 13 studies which merited inclusion for PICO 2. CONCLUSION:PICO 1: We recommend the use of restrictive licensing to reduce firearm-related injuries.PICO 2: We recommend against the use of concealed carry laws to reduce firearm-related injuries.This committee found an association between more restrictive licensing and lower firearm injury rates. All 14 studies were population-based, longitudinal, used modeling to control for covariates, and 11 of the 14 were multi-state. Twelve of the studies reported reductions in firearm injuries, from 7% to 40%. We found no consistent effect of concealed carry laws. Of note, the varied quality of the available data demonstrates a significant information gap, and this committee recommends that we as a society foster a nurturing and encouraging environment that can strengthen future evidence based guidelines. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE:Systematic review, level III.

BACKGROUND:The mission of the Connecticut Injury Prevention Center (CIPC), jointly housed in Connecticut Children's Medical Center and Hartford Hospital, is to reduce unintentional injury and violence among Connecticut residents, with a special focus on translating research into injury prevention programmes and policy. The CIPC engages in four core activities: research, education and training, community outreach programmes and public policy. As surveillance is an essential element of injury prevention, the CIPC has developed a robust statewide fatal and non-fatal injury surveillance system that has guided our prior work and continues to inform our current projects. OBJECTIVE:The purpose of this article is to review the projects, programmes, and collaborative relationships that have made the CIPC successful in reducing unintentional injury and violence in Connecticut throughout the course of its 25 years history. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS/METHODS:Retrospective review of the application of injury surveillance. RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS/CONCLUSIONS:We believe that the application of our surveillance system can serve as a model for others who wish to engage in collaborative, community-based, data-driven injury prevention programmes in their own communities.

BACKGROUND:Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a source of severe health consequences, and therefore, health care organizations have recommended routine IPV screening. Implementing health-related screenings outside of health care facilities is common public health practice, but to date, IPV screening in hair salons has not been reported. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of IPV among women at hair salons. We hypothesized that women would disclose IPV in this setting and that rates of abuse would reflect national averages. METHODS:We recruited a convenience sample of hair salons in Connecticut in 2014. Hair stylists were trained on how to recognize and refer IPV victims. Self-reported IPV of salon clients was measured by a tablet-based validated screening tool, the Patient Satisfaction and Safety Survey. RESULTS:Overall, reported past-year prevalence of physical abuse was 3.6%, past-year prevalence of sexual abuse was 2.7%, lifetime prevalence of emotional or physical abuse was 34.2%, and 5.3% of the sample reported that they had been hurt that day by their current or former partner. Past-year physical abuse was more common among women 30 years to 39 years old (9.1%), black (9%), and single women (7.5%). Past-year sexual abuse was more common among women 20 years to 29 years old (13.8%), other races (6.7%), and single women (5.4%). Lifetime abuse was more common among women 50 years to 59 years old (13.8%), black (36.1%), and divorced women (69.7%). Hurt-today abuse was more common among women younger than 20 years (12.5%), other races (13.3%), and women in common law relationships (25%). CONCLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:Women in our study reported IPV prevalence rates consistent with national data. Documentation of IPV prevalence in hair salons will provide much-needed support for novel interventions such as CUT IT OUT, a national program designed to train hair stylists on how to recognize and refer IPV victims.