Listen to this articleFollowing a meeting at the White House, where healthcare leaders from around the country discussed gun-violence prevention, Northwell Health commemorated Gun Violence Awareness Day.
This year, National Gun Violence Awareness Day was Friday, June 7. For Northwell team members, the recognition began Thursday evening, when leaders gathered at the White House Center for Gun Violence Prevention. A focused recognition extended through the weekend.
“Every movement that creates waves of positive change begins with optimism, hope, and people working together. Gun violence prevention is no exception, and while change can feel slow, momentum is growing,” Northwell Health President and CEO Michael Dowling said in a news release about preventing gun violence.
At the White House, more than 80 healthcare executives and physicians gathered to strategize to curb firearm deaths and injuries. In attendance were members of the National Health Care CEO Council on Gun Violence Prevention & Safety, which Dowling had organized in 2022. Members of the council have already made an initial donation of $10 million toward a $40 million fundraising goal over the next two years, supporting a national gun violence prevention campaign with the Ad Council, expected to roll out in 2025.
The awareness campaign comes at a time when gun violence claimed the lives of 43,000 Americans in 2023 and injured more than 36,000. That’s according to Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit corporation in Washington, D.C., that documents incidents of gun violence and gun crime.
Over the weekend, Northwell took part in the “Wear Orange” campaign, which aims to promote firearm safety as well as reduce street violence, suicide and unintentional shootings. This campaign included illuminating the health system’s New Hyde Park headquarters and three of its hospitals in orange to draw attention to what healthcare leaders call a gun-violence “epidemic.” Those hospitals included Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore and Staten Island University Hospital, all of which have violence-intervention programs. On Friday, information booths were set up in the lobbies of those facilities to inform employees, patients and visitors on what they can do to advocate for change and make their homes and communities safer.
Back in 2020, Dowling established Northwell’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention, recognizing that caregivers are on the front lines of keeping their patients and communities safe, and regularly see the tragic consequences of gun violence. To foster dialogue among healthcare professionals, Northwell created the Gun Violence Prevention Learning Collaborative for Health Systems and Hospitals in 2021, providing a forum for them to share best practices, and implement and evaluate strategies for preventing firearm-related injuries and deaths. The Learning Collaborative now includes more than 600 participants from 38 states.
Northwell has convened five Gun Violence Prevention Forums since 2019. Since then, it has built relationships with hundreds of activists, elected officials, government, agencies, academic organizations, medical groups, trade associations and individuals seeking to help curb firearm deaths and injuries, while also co-sponsoring and co-hosting conferences and workshops.