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By Elinor Simek | UC Berkeley News

Last month, after years of debate, U.S. Health Secretary Vivek Murthy declared gun violence an urgent public health crisis and released an extraordinary report outlining its devastating consequences.

Murthy's 32-page opinion is the first federal government report to comprehensively recognize the health impacts of gun violence on Americans, whether they are direct victims or family members or friends of victims or live in communities that face ongoing street violence or have experienced a mass shooting.

For Jason Corburn, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, gun violence has always been a public health problem, and he's just been teaching Berkeley School of Public Health students how to address it as such.

The course, “Preventing Gun Violence in Urban Areas: A Public Health Perspective,” was Berkeley Public Health’s first course to address gun violence in urban areas.

“No matter how you feel about guns, there is no doubt that gun violence is a leading cause of disability, injury and death among Americans,” Corburn said. “Gun violence is both a source of trauma and stress and a response to unaddressed trauma. Gun violence in cities is a community health equity issue because black and brown youth, men under 35, and highly segregated neighborhoods are most likely to experience gun violence.

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“But this is also a population and place issue, because the effects of gun violence can affect others in the community, whether directly or witnessed,” Corburn said.

Firearm-related injuries, such as suicide and homicide, are the leading cause of death among children and adolescents (ages 1 to 19) in the United States, with the black community being hit hardest. Homicide is the leading cause of death among black men under age 44 in the United States.

Gun violence in cities is sometimes called “street violence” or “community gun violence” and is defined as violence in public spaces between people who do not know each other well. It is different from domestic violence, mass shootings, or suicide.

“I wanted to use this course to raise awareness of the current epidemic of gun violence in cities,” Corburn said. “While this type of violence is often overlooked compared to the bigger headlines of mass shootings, gun violence in cities persists and continues to harm the same communities over and over again.”

Corburn, a professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, co-taught the course with Joe Griffin and DeVone Boggan. Griffin, who received his MPH and DrPH from Berkeley Public Health, is executive director of Youth ALIVE!, an Oakland-based nonprofit that works to reduce violence.

Boggan, also a UC Berkeley graduate, is the executive director of Advance Peace and the former director of the Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) in Richmond. Corburn has worked with the ONS and Advance Peace in Richmond since 2007.

The course was designed as a seminar that combined readings, videos, and discussions with researchers and practitioners. The core of the course was a consideration of structural racism in America and how certain policies such as redlining, dehumanizing policing, and environmental injustices create the social, spatial, and institutional conditions for gun violence.

Ten students from Berkeley Public Health and City and Regional Planning participated. The instructors led the classes each week along with students who gave presentations.

Each class also hosted a guest speaker from leading research and government organizations across the country. The guests, many of whom had personal experience with gun violence, discussed with students street outreach, participant engagement, hospital interventions, the role of the media, and other potential solutions to gun violence in cities.

Speakers included Greg Jackson, deputy director of the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which was launched in 2023. Other guests included Abené Clayton, a journalist involved in the Guardian's Guns and Lies in America project; David Muhammad, executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform; Dr. Shani Buggs and Dr. Kravitz-Wirtz of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis; and Sam Vaughn, director of the Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS) in Richmond.

Inspire students

“The course was a great opportunity to learn about the latest research in the field of gun violence prevention,” said Ricardo Sarmiento, who received his MPH in health policy and management from UC Berkeley in May. “The invited guests had their finger on the pulse of society.”

“The course covered public health, urban planning, political advocacy and community organizing,” Sarmiento said. “The speakers all presented different approaches to reducing gun violence.”