We’ve talked about the economic cost of violence here at FHO (there is a clinical guide on the topic, in fact). So I was really interested in this interview on Morning Edition as I was driving in to work today with a health economist. Not just because it addresses actual financial figures (and people can debate whether they believe that these figures are accurate, so wade into the Comments section of this article with care), but because the interviewer, David Greene, asked the intriguing question of his subject, Dr. Ted Miller, what kind of toll does it take on you to think about violence in these terms?
With the renewed call for Congress to lift CDC’s ban on funding gun research, and in the shadow of years of mass gun violence here in the US (particularly as we pass the 3rd anniversary of Sandy Hook), this is a raw, but timely topic.
Check out the full interview:
And as a follow-on, last week Terri Gross interviewed journalist Mark Follman, the National Affairs Editor at Mother Jones. After the Aurora theater shooting he and his colleagues started building a database on mass shootings, since none existed. His findings are pretty illuminating:
1 reply on “Looking At Violence In America With A Financial Lens”
Timely topics, Jen, thanks for posting!