Page 30 - Delaware Medical Journal - July-August 2018
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Asking Patients About Gun Violence, Drug Use Can Save Lives
Kara Odom Walker, MD, MPH, MSHS
As physicians, we have sworn to the health of Delawareans and can help us lost a family member or friend to such
address the social determinants of health. Both areas involve top public health issues in our state.
attention is gun violence. Last year in Wilmington alone, we lost 32 lives to
of that violence. Beyond the deaths and injuries, we see the impact of trauma that people, including children, experience by being exposed to such violence. Trauma leads to the toxic stress that affects an individual’s mental, emotional, and physical health.
I urge you to ask your patients if they have been exposed to violence in their ask if they have guns in their home, whether those guns are safely secured, if they have been injured by gun violence,
While some of the knowledge we gather in treating disease or injury comes from what we see, much also can come from the screening questions we ask and listening to the answers we hear.
Think about the routine screening questions we ask patients on tobacco use and, if they answer yes, how often and
for how long they have smoked. Same for drinking. We screen for alcohol because we know the life-threatening conditions that can result from people who drink too often and too much. And almost no behavior
is more of an indicator of future chronic disease than smoking.
As Delaware’s Secretary of Health and
as a fellow physician, I am asking you to embrace two more areas of screening that I think can make a tremendous difference to
violence, or been a witness. Those questions and answers can help you start
to unravel complex conditions that might be affecting your patients. The responses also can present critical warning signs
that we collaboratively can address. At
the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS), and at our sister agency, the Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families, we can help you make the appropriate referrals for social services and supports, including behavioral health counseling.
In fact, too few physicians are asking those questions, to the detriment of our patients. Fewer than 10% of health care professionals ask about violence in the community.1 Kogan estimated that more than 55% of health care professionals should ask those screening questions. I urge you to look at your patient panels to
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Del Med J | July/August 2018 | Vol. 90 | No. 6
