About the Firearm Injury Center
The Firearm Injury Center, founded in 1997, is an academically based research organization dedicated to the prevention of firearm injuries and deaths. Organized within the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, the Center compiles and disseminates comprehensive, objective, accurate information and analysis of firearm and violence-related injury and deaths. Researchers, policymakers, community agencies, and the mass media are among the primary audiences for this information. The Center's advisory board includes legislators, community leaders, government officials, criminal justice professionals, and advocates. The Center is supported by public agencies and private foundations as well as contributions from the public.
The Firearm Injury Center employs a public health approach to the reduction of firearm injuries. This approach considers environmental factors, the characteristics of the victim, and the characteristics of the instrument of injury in striving for a more comprehensive understanding of firearm and violence-related injuries and effective prevention strategies. The Center engages in research and analytical efforts using non-fatal as well as fatal injury data.
The Center is best known for its model Violent Injury Reporting System (VIRS), directed by Carrie Nie, MPH. With statewide cooperation from medical examiners, coroners, law enforcement agencies and the state of Wisconsin crime laboratories, comprehensive data on all violent fatalities have been linked and maintained in a central database. The VIRS provides a unique resource for researchers, policymakers and communities interested in violent injury prevention.
Beginning in 1999, the Center has collaborated with the Harvard School of Public Health in the development of a multi-state pilot for tracking violent deaths, the National Violent Injury Statistics System. Together with Harvard, the Center has assisted the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in developing a national, state-based reporting system known as the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). The NVDRS has received bi-partisan support in Congress—with leadership from Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) among others—and has been a federal budget priority for four years.
The Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services has been awarded federal funding from the CDC to participate in the NVDRS beginning with violent deaths occurring in 2004. As the state assumes leadership of this effort, the model VIRS has initiated an investigation into additional linkages including criminal histories of victims and suspects as well as comprehensive firearm trace information.
Dr. Stephen Hargarten founded and directs the Center. Dr. Hargarten is chairman of the Medical College of Wisconsin's Department of Emergency Medicine, and is an internationally recognized expert on firearm injury and injury prevention and policy.