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New study shows how pediatricians can start more conversations about gun safety

WBUR

new study out in JAMA Pediatrics suggests one way to move forward on gun safety in this country and the role pediatricians can play.

Here & Now’s Deepa Fernandes speaks with Rinad Beidas, the study’s lead author. She is a psychologist and chair of the Department of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University.

“Pediatricians are trusted messengers and they’re asking parents about important matters, and this is an important matter, as the leading cause of death for young people in the United States,” said Beidas.

“We worked with thirty clinics across two health systems and the focus was really to support clinicians to talk about secure firearm storage and offer a cable lock. Half of the clinics just had a change to their workflow and electronic health records where they got a reminder to do those things. The other half of the clinics received that reminder and also got targeted support and problem-solving to the clinics around the implementation of that program. What we found were that kids and families that went to clinics that got the change to the electronic health record and that support were 2.2 times more likely to receive that program than kids who were going to clinics that just had the electronic health records change,” said Beidas.

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