The leading cause of death among US children and adolescents (surpassing mortality from motor vehicle crashes and childhood cancer).
Annual pediatric death rates that continues to rise.
This is due, in part, to the gross disproportionate widespread gun availability in the United States. While accounting for only 4% of the global population, the US possesses 50% of the world’s civilian guns.
Currently research has focused on:
> Describing the scope of the firearm epidemic, and
> The efficacy of gun regulation.
Methods for primary prevention of pediatric firearm injuries are less studied. Decreasing demand for gun ownership is also less studied.
We have started to develop the P.L.E.D.G.E. campaign to reduce firearm injury through school-based education. In this phase our focus is to gather input from students, parents, and teachers about a school-based firearm safety education curriculum. In the next phase, we plan to create working groups to develop the core principles of our curriculum. Working groups will include school officers, law enforcements, psychologists, pediatricians, and behavioral scientists.
Our long-term mission is to focus on childhood education to reduce firearm injury. In turn, we hope to change the generational mindset around firearm ownership.
The P.L.E.D.G.E. campaign proposal is to reduce pediatric firearm deaths and promote generational mindset change about gun ownership. The P.L.E.D.G.E. campaign asks students to:
