Assessing risk for firearm injury and attitudes about new gun violence prevention laws in Michigan to enhance policy implementation

University Of Michigan At Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT I am an established investigator in substance use research requesting 2-years of support to expand my research into firearm injury and mortality prevention. In my research, I have used a developmental psychopathology approach to examine the interplay of genetic, environmental, and developmental influences on substance use, antisocial behavior, and personality. As a result, I have acquired substantial expertise in psychological measurement and longitudinal data analyses. I hope to expand my research into firearm injury prevention with an emphasis on survey research, and seek to gain new skills in survey methods, epidemiology, statistical methods for prediction (e.g., machine learning), and policy evaluation. The University of Michigan provides an exceptional environment to make this transition, most notably the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, which provides a unique interdisciplinary environment for training and research. I propose a series of short courses, mentored experiences, and research collaborations to gain these skills and establish a line of firearm injury prevention research. Following highly publicized mass shooting the Michigan legislature recently passed new gun violence prevention (GVP) laws including expanded background checks, secure storage requirements, and extreme risk protection order or “red flag” law. Given the timing of the passage of the GVP laws, the research plan will focus on obtaining information about (1) risk for firearm violence and suicide to identify people for whom GVP practices are most needed and (2) attitudes about the new GVP laws and GVP practices generally to identify opportunities and barriers to implementation. To this end, I have collected several national online surveys (N~5000) that include information detailed information about thoughts and behaviors of firearm violence and suicide, as well as risk factors including various of firearm ownership suicidality, mental health, substance use, antisocial behavior, and intimate partner violence. We will use machine learning techniques to characterize risk factors and person-centered approaches to identify gun owners at high-risk for firearm violence and suicide. These risk analyses will then be refined to better assess classification accuracy and construct screening tools by conducting new surveys oversampling from groups with high rates of firearm victimization and suicide as well as assess attitudes about GVP laws and practices. Lastly, we will ascertain a sample representative of Michigan residents to assess awareness of and support for new GVP laws, willingness to implement GVP practices in general, risk for firearm violence and suicide, gun ownership, and other correlates of attitudes about GVP polices, and test whether exposure to different GVP prevention messages is associated with changes in attitudes about GVP practices. We hypothesize there will be substantial overlap between correlates of GVP attitudes and risk factors for firearm violence and suicide. This research will provide information to help implement GVP laws and practices, e.g., through public awareness campaigns and tailored outreach to high-risk groups, and the support of this award will help me to establish a sustainable line of firearm injury and mortality prevention research.