Thread by @jennybencardino

TY @meganranney for promoting a public health approach to the epidemic of #gunviolence.

Dr. Ranney's @TEDxProvidence talk is a must watch!

Please donate @ResearchAffirm

Thread for those who may be uncertain about this approach.
#ThisIsOurLane
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https://twitter.com/ETSshow/status/1186876522956644352

I am a Colombian physician who served in guerrilla territory in the early 90s at the peak of the drug wars in my country. I had to perform autopsies on countless human bodies destroyed by military-style riffles. I still have nightmares.

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I learn to distinguish the sound made by each of the guns used by the Colombian army and the guerrilla fighters while I tried to sleep at night using my bed as a barricade, because the windows of my bedroom were dangerously low.

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Dr. Ranney is an Emergency Room physician who manages patients with #GSW in the U.S.

We are in the midst of an epidemic.

There is data that needs to be collected and analyzed to drive measures that will help us decrease the climbing mortality rate related to gun injuries.

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Epidemiology is the branch of medicine that deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health. Epidemiology does not lie or "twists" facts.

Data is collected, analyzed and compared.

See examples of data on #guns.

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Epidemiology is the reason why your physician advices you to control your blood pressure, your weight, your cholesterol, your exercise and glucose levels, so that you can stand a good chance at living a long life, free of cardiovascular disease.

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Dr. Ranney's approach is not new. It was used in Cali, Colombia by its major, Dr. Rodrigo Guerrero, an epidemiologist who took issue with the epidemic of homicides in his City in the 90s. Everyone thought that the climbing rate of gun violence was due to the drug wars.

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Wrong! It was due to people using their paycheck money to intoxicate themselves over the weekends, accessing guns while drunk and going out to hurt others, whom themselves very often were also intoxicated by alcohol (50% of the victims were drunk).


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His research was awarded the @RouxPrize for using data to address violence as a public health crisis in Cali, Colombia. What did Dr. Guerrero do? He used the data to put in place measures and prevent unnecessary deaths and injuries.
thelancet.com/journals/lance…

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His approach was wildly successful with the rates of gunshot wounds decreasing by one third.

healthdata.org/news-release/d….

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That's all what we physicians want to do. We care about you, your family, your friends, your neighbors. We don't want to stand in the sidelines passively letting our patients die from a preventable cause: #gunviolence

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I work in South Philly. One fifth of our E.R. patients are victims of gunshot injuries. That is 1 out 5 people who are brought to our E.R.

#Healthcare professionals are doing everything we can to save their lives when they arrive to the hospital.

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Unfortunately, we are not having much success.

Gunshot wounds are often devastating.

We now are urged to help prevent the reasons why our patients are suffering gun shot wounds in the first place.

We need the data to drive change and save lives.

It is that simple.

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