TREATING VIOLENCE

How health care workers might address lethal social dysfunction.

The national plague of violence, argues emergency room physician Gore, should be treated as an actual plague—i.e., a public health emergency requiring the intervention of experts from a multitude of disciplines, including those in the medical profession. The author recounts a childhood in Brooklyn marred by actual and potential violence and explains how a desire to make his community safer influenced his decision to become a doctor serving those most in need. He testifies to the carnage he has routinely witnessed over two decades in the ER and notes the strikingly disproportionate toll violence takes on nonwhite and poor people. Gore uses sobering mortality statistics to record the extraordinary human suffering generated by gun violence in the U.S., and he delivers searing descriptions of traumatic hospital scenes, several of which involve his own friends and family members. The credible and timely prescription Gore offers is to augment programs that address, in holistic ways tailored to specific communities, some of the root causes of violence. As he argues persuasively, a preventive approach holds great potential for the most vulnerable: “Rather than locking people up, containing them in communities with minimal resources and limited support, let’s treat the trauma and provide alternatives and, above all, head off violence before it even happens.” Gore’s account of his work with the Kings Against Violence Initiative, a nonprofit focusing on mentoring at-risk youth and providing much-needed social services, demonstrates how successful such strategies can be, especially if they involve members of the health care community and identify signs of social pathology in their early stages. “America is at war with itself,” the author concludes, and cycles of violence can only be broken with committed, well-informed modes of intervention.

A frank, powerful argument for public health initiatives addressing violence.