After a Night of Gun Violence, Nurses Renew Call For CDC Research

With gun violence disrupting lives in Chicago, Denver, St. Louis and Philadelphia yesterday the New Jersey State Nurses Association (NJSNA) is renewing its call for funding to allow the Centers for Disease Control to conduct gun violence research.

Workplace violence is on the rise, especially for health care workers, with 76 percent of nurses reporting they have experienced workplace violence. Twelve percent of emergency nurses experienced a significantly greater number of incidents, according to a 2014 Emergency Nurses Association survey. The Emergency Nurse Association study reports that half of emergency room nurses are victims of workplace violence annually.

Nurses were also victims of workplace gun violence. There were 154 incidents of hospital-related shooting events between 2001-2011. In these incidents, 235 persons were killed or injured and the majority of those incidents were in the emergency department, according to research from Johns Hopkins published the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

“We’re on the other side of the gun violence coin,” said NJSNA President Dr. Benjamin Evans. “The side from which we come is the public health issue. In the CDC regulations, there is a prohibition to collect epidemiological data and we are in support of the CDC being able to collect evidence. None of us go in and practice healthcare without supportive evidence.”

Nurses continue to view gun violence as a public health emergency, speak out on the issue and advocate for a study, since calling for action on Capitol Hill at ANA’s Lobby Day in 2016. President Donald Trump’s March spending plan gives the CDC the authority to study the causes of gun violence but lacks funding to do the actual research.

Costs of initial hospitalizations for firearm-related injuries averaged $734.6 million per year from 2006 to 2014, according to an April 2017 Stanford University study in the American Journal of Public Health, one of a few available data sets. Total costs for the initial inpatient hospitalization totaled $6.61 billion for that time period. Costs for these injuries are significant to the health care system and not discussed, according to the study. Forty percent of the total costs, or $2.7 billion, was billed to Medicaid and Medicare, with Medicaid taking the lion’s share of costs at $2.3 billion.

“This is not about gun control or taking firearms away from legal gun owners,” said Evans. “We want the research to be able to find solutions to the crisis.”

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About NJSNA
The New Jersey State Nurses Association (NJSNA) represents the interests of 125,000 registered nurses and advanced practice nurses as an advocate for the nursing profession. NJSNA, which was established in 1901, is a constituent member of the American Nurses Association. NJSNA’s lobbying arm continues to protect the nursing profession through legislative victories. Its nonprofit foundation, Institute for Nursing, helps nurses further their careers by providing continuing education, scholarships and research grants in addition to invaluable networking opportunities. For more information, nurses can visit www.njsna.org or contact NJSNA at njsna@njsna.org or (609) 883-5335.