Chill on Funding Still Limits Gun-Violence Research

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In January 2013, President Obama issued a memorandum directing federal agencies to conduct or sponsor research into the causes of gun violence and ways to prevent it.

Three years later, the flow of federal dollars to such research is still relatively small. A 2013 call for proposals from the National Institutes of Health, for example, for projects “with a particular focus on firearm violence” resulted in nine grants, so far, totaling nearly $3.7 million, and only two of those studies deal directly with guns.

While that is a pittance compared with the size of the problems created by gun violence in the United States, it still represents a “major change,” said Michael B. Siegel, a professor in the department of community health sciences at Boston University’s School of Public Health.

Federal agencies have avoided nearly all research into gun violence since 1996, when Congress warned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about using any money for research related to gun violence.

Organizations that study public health have also largely avoided research into gun violence, said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.

That is in contrast with the growing number of nonprofit groups advocating tighter gun-control laws. Many of those groups were on hand this week when President Obama announced several new executive orders meant to tighten gun laws and encourage companies to develop “smart gun” technology.

Mr. Hemenway said much of the money for his own research into gun violence comes from the Joyce Foundation, one of the few private groups willing to take the political heat for supporting such scientific inquiry.

Aside from Joyce, many of the private organizations that deal with public health haven’t wanted to risk the negative publicity, said Mr. Hemenway.

“This is such a contentious area,” he said.

Backlash in Congress

The so-called ban on federal money for research into firearms was a response to a 1993 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The research, which was paid for by the CDC’s National Center on Injury Prevention, concluded that keeping a gun in the home increased the likelihood that a family member or acquaintance would be killed by that gun.

That study became well known publicly and also very unpopular with the National Rifle Association, which lobbied Congress to shut down the injury-prevention center. Although that effort failed, Congress cut about $2.6 million from the center’s budget for the 1997 fiscal year — the same amount that the agency had spent to finance studies of firearm violence the previous year.

In addition, an amendment sponsored by U.S. Rep. Jay W. Dickey Jr., a Republican from Arkansas, prohibited the injury-prevention center from spending any money to “advocate or promote gun control.”

The provision does not explicitly ban research into firearms, but it communicated a clear threat that any future research into gun violence could result in more budget cuts, said David Satcher, director of the CDC from 1993 to 1998.

The CDC has continued to track injury data “to document the public-health burden of firearm injuries in the U.S.,” Courtney Lenard, an agency spokeswoman, said in an email to The Chronicle.

President Obama’s 2013 action to allow research into gun violence could be carried out, if Congress appropriated the money, Ms. Lenard said. The president requested $10 million for such research in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 fiscal years, but Congress did not approve those requests.

Signs of Change

Despite the chilling affect of the Dickey Amendment, there are signs that other agencies and private groups are showing interest in supporting research into the causes and prevention of gun violence. Even Mr. Dickey, more than a decade after leaving Congress, has changed his tune: He is a co-author of a 2012 opinion piece that called for renewed federal spending on research into gun deaths and injuries.

In addition to the National Institutes of Health grants, the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, has given $622,000 to the Urban Institute for a study called “Evaluating Gunshot Detection Technology to Aid in the Reduction of Firearms Violence.”

Other foundations are also showing interest in supporting research to lower gun violence. Dr. Siegel, at Boston University, says he has applied for a grant of about $500,000 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the third-wealthiest foundation in the nation and the largest dedicated solely to health.

That money, which has not yet been formally approved by the foundation, would be used by a group of researchers at several institutions to study the gun laws and culture in all 50 states, Dr. Siegel said.

The purpose, he said, is not to consider legal or policy changes, but to find ways to change people’s attitudes and perceptions of guns. The study could conclude that in order to reduce gun violence, firearms should be promoted in a different way, with less focus on self-defense and more focus on collecting, sport shooting, and hunting with guns. The foundation did not make anyone available for comment.

Dr. Siegel and others are heartened by the growing private interest in their field of research. But without a more significant investment of federal dollars, the results will be limited.

Mr. Hemenway said one problem is that until there are many more researchers looking at gun violence, peer reviewers of both grants and publications may not be familiar enough with the topic to fairly evaluate proposals.

Sandro Galea, dean of the School of Public Health at Boston University, said the lack of consistent federal grant support will also discourage young researchers from pursuing the topic. “The problem for a young investigator is that she has to launch down a path with an uncertain funding future,” he said.

But the biggest challenge, Dr. Galea said, is “scale and scope.”

Large federal grants are necessary to create valuable independent data and conduct the kind of long-term studies that have helped to significantly reduce the number of traffic fatalities over the past decade, he said.

“What’s so galling for people like myself,” he said, “is that so much of what troubles us is entirely preventable.”

Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com.

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