Challenges, Successes, and the Future of Firearm Injury Prevention

Policy Points Firearm injury is a leading cause of death in the United States, with fatality rates increasing 34.9% over the past decade (2010-2020). Firearm injury is preventable through multifaceted evidence-based approaches. Reviewing past challenges and successes in the field of firearm injury prevention can highlight the future directions needed in the field. Adequate funding, rigorous and comprehensive data availability and access, larger pools of diverse and scientifically trained researchers and practitioners, robust evidence-based programming and policy implementation, and a reduction in stigma, polarization, and politicization of the science are all needed to move the field forward.

Preventing Unintentional Injury: A Review of Behavior Change Theories for Primary Care

Many injuries are preventable, and most have a behavioral component on their causal pathway. However, far more effective use of theory-based approaches to behavioral risk management is needed, which remains a challenge for practitioners. This review discusses theories and applications of behavioral change principles for use in primary care and community health settings. Injury-related behaviors cannot be separated from the environments in which they take place. Preventing unintentional injuries requires an understanding of patient knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors, as well as community norms, that lead to injuries. In addition to the role clinicians have in counseling for lifestyle change to prevent injuries, reducing exposure of patients to hazardous products and environments, and fostering social and organizational change to improve public policy, legislation, and enforcement to prevent injuries are equally important. Challenges lie ahead in testing the applicability of these theories in primary care settings and in predicting and understanding injury-related behaviors of patients. Training more medical practitioners in the epidemiology of injury and the science of injury control is an urgent priority. Success will partly depend on how behavioral theories can be integrated into practice and adapted through clinical experience to benefit patients.

Human Factors in Injury Control

A person’s interaction with the environment represents a system for research and focus. Human factors is a discipline dedicated to studying this system. The authors provide a summary of how the field human factors informs and enhances injury control programs. They introduce perception, cognition, and environmental design components that should be considered; review automation and workload issues; and discuss best practice recommendations for increasing safe product use as well. Finally, the authors offer lessons learned from human factors approaches to safety at large and suggest future areas of study. Specifically, they note that investigating behavioral adaptation is important to extend intervention effects. They also note that human factors approaches have been used extensively in occupational and transportation areas but can be applied to other areas of injury control that are worth exploring.

Injuries: An Underrecognized Lifestyle Problem

This article introduces the field of injury prevention and control and its relationship to lifestyle medicine. A review of injury epidemiology, definitions, intervention approaches, and the importance of injury as a public health problem are discussed. Injuries are a large, predictable, and preventable national and international problem affecting individuals, families, and communities. Behavioral, environmental, and technological solutions are necessary to reduce or eliminate injuries. Reductions in injuries and their costs to patients and their families are possible but will need support, collaboration, and partnering from policy makers, clinicians, and health care practitioners. Lifestyle medicine and primary care family practitioners are important allies in encouraging lifestyle choices that reduce injuries and in advocating for medical and public health policies related to injury prevention. Injuries should be added to the broad range of conditions resulting from lifestyle choices, and primary caregivers and other gatekeepers in health care can help reduce injuries from all causes.