David Hemenway, Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, will present a convocation at 10:50 a.m. on Friday, October 27 in the Skinner Memorial Chapel at Carleton College. Entitled “Private Guns, Public Health,” his presentation is free and open to the public.
Professor Hemenway also serves as the director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center. The injury center coordinates research for the National Violent Injury Statistics System in order to help improve available data on suicide and homicide. In the United States, almost 80 people per day are killed with guns. Yet comparatively little research has been directed toward understanding and reducing gun injuries.
Dr. Hemenway's research specifically focuses on firearm injuries. He is studying the effects of gun carrying; how guns are stored and whether training can improve storage practices; the external costs and benefits of gun ownership; the use of guns in self-defense; gun use among adolescents; guns on college campuses; the relationship between gun prevalence and homicide, suicide and unintentional gun deaths; and the effects of changes in the legal drinking age on youth violence.
In 2004, University of Michigan Press published Dr. Hemenway’s book Private Guns, Public Health. The book demonstrates how research findings on gun accidents, suicides, and crimes can, in a thoughtful and apolitical way, illuminate a significant social issue.
For more information and disability accommodations, call the Carleton college relations office at (507) 646-4308.
