Four new faculty members have been recruited to the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Colorado School of Public Health to focus on firearm injury prevention with the CU Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative (FIPI), underscoring the program’s value and success in investigating and preventing firearm-related violence and their commitment to making the CU Anschutz Medical Campus a continued national leader in firearm injury prevention research.
The new affiliates, who were hired earlier this year after a national search and with financial support from the CU School of Medicine Dean’s Office, are: Leslie Barnard, PhD; Ginny McCarthy, DrPH, MDiv; Julie Kafka, PhD, MPH; and Rachel Kennedy, PhD, RN.
Each new affiliate brings a specialized skill set that allows the team to expand its reach and dive deeper into FIPI’s mission of using collaboration, education, and research to prevent all types of firearm-related injuries and deaths.
“Growing CU’s faculty focused on firearm injury prevention brings new ideas, expertise, and areas of study to FIPI. We are excited to support these early-career scientists in their work, and the growing team also fosters new and creative collaborations across departments and disciplines,” says Emmy Betz, MD, MPH, founding director of FIPI and professor of emergency medicine.
Betz stresses the need for more investigators dedicated to firearm injury prevention is high. Limits on federal funding has resulted in few evidence-based solutions compared to the magnitude of the problem.
“We’re proud to be able to support these new scientists as they shed light on why firearm injuries happen – and how we can prevent them,” Betz says.
Firearm injuries and deaths occur for varied reasons in the U.S., including self-harm (suicide), intimate partner violence, other types of interpersonal violence, mass shootings, police-involved shootings, and unintentional or “accidental” shootings. Firearm injuries and deaths also occur across varied communities –as defined by age, race, gender, and geographic location.
“While there may be some common risk factors and common approaches to prevention, it’s also critical that we engage with affected communities and tailor our approaches to the type of firearm injury,” Betz says. “What works to prevent firearm suicide in youth in rural areas, for example, will be different from what works to prevent firearm domestic violence homicide in women in urban areas.”
Meet the new faculty members and the skills they are bringing to CU Anschutz:
Leslie Barnard
Leslie Barnard, DrPH, is an assistant research professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health. Her work focuses on understanding the risk and protective factors that contribute to and prevent firearm related harms. She works to understand evidence-based policies and programs that reduce firearm injuries with a focus on firearm suicide and mass shootings.
“I plan to leverage my epidemiological expertise while collaborating with dedicated colleagues to understand how evidence-based policies and programs can reduce firearm injuries,” Barnard says. “I intend to educate and empower communities, healthcare professionals, and decision-makers to create safer environments and promote public health.”
Ginny McCarthy
Ginny McCarthy, DrPH, MDiv, assistant professor of surgery, will work with fellow researchers to focus on intervention and prevention of community-based interpersonal firearm violence through community-led research.
“From work with our regional hospital-based violence intervention program, the At-Risk Intervention and Mentoring program, to the establishment of the Respect, Empowerment, Accountability, Community, Healing (REACH) clinic, a post discharge clinic for individuals who have been violently injured, I will work closely with trained violence prevention professionals researchers to design, conduct, and disseminate culturally appropriate research to assess and maximize the effectiveness of programs to facilitate holistic healing for individuals, families, and communities impacted by violence,” she says.
Julie Kafka
Julie Kafka, PhD, MPH, focuses on research dedicated to the prevention and interruption of intimate partner violence, with a focus on systems response, policy implementation, and the role of firearms in violence escalation.
“I am deeply grateful and humbled to have found a community of researchers dedicated to a shared mission of addressing firearm-related harms, a critically important but understudied public health issue,” Kafka says.
In her work, Kafka aims to conduct applied research that can help support victim-survivors and their families, while also addressing abusive behaviors by the people who perpetrate harm. To this end, she utilizes mixed methods approaches including integration of qualitative methods, text mining, natural language processing, quasi-experimental research designs, and epidemiological surveillance approaches.
Rachel Kennedy
As a registered nurse, forensic nurse examiner, and research director for the Forensic Nurse Examiner Program at CU and the UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, Rachel Kennedy, PhD, RN, brings a robust skillset to her new role as an assistant professor with the Department of Emergency Medicine.
She will assist in expanding the collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to prevent firearm injury among survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence.
“Through robust mixed-methods research, I hope to not only better understand the importance of firearms within the domestic violence context, but also work to develop needed resources, build community partnerships, and improve best practices for preventing firearm injury among survivors of intimate partner and domestic violence,” Kennedy says.
