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Comprehensive public health approach urged to curb gun violence in U.S.

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In the wake of the horrific school shootings in Newtown, Conn., in December, three Harvard experts say the best way to curb gun violence in the U.S. is to take a broad public health approach, drawing on proven, evidence-based strategies that have successfully reduced other public health threats like smoking, car crashes, and accidental poisonings.

The authors make the case for a comprehensive public health approach to gun violence in a viewpoint article published online January 7, 2013 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

For instance, in much the same way that media, celebrities, peers, teachers, and physicians worked together in the latter decades of the 20th century to “de-glorify” cigarettes—previously seen as symbols of power, modernity, and sexuality—an analogous campaign “could justifiably equate gun violence with weakness, irrationality, and cowardice” and reduce its glorification in movies, television, and video games, the authors write.