Illustration: Carlo Giambarresi

RESEARCH

Safer on the Job

A study by Boston College researchers is the first to demonstrate that stronger firearm laws can reduce workplace homicide rates.

States that toughened their firearm policies saw declines in the rate of workplace homicides, according to a new study by BC social work and economics researchers who looked at gun law changes during a six-year period. When states tightened certain categories of gun policies—restrictions on firearms for domestic violence offenders and on concealed carrying, and increased background checks—workplace homicides decreased significantly, the BC team wrote in the American Journal of Public Health.

"What this study points to is one potential lever that states can pull to help reduce the number of homicides that take place at work,” said School of Social Work Assistant Professor Erika Sabbath, who led the study. “Results of this study suggest that laws that restrict firearm access and use could be meaningful steps toward prevention.”

Gun violence has been declared a public health crisis in America. In 2017, 13,205 working-age adults died by firearm, making it the ninth-leading cause of death for the group. Homicides account for about 9 percent of the approximately 4,800 workplace fatalities each year in the US—with nearly 80 percent of those homicides classified as intentional shootings.

Sabbath, School of Social Work Associate Professor Summer Sherburne Hawkins, and Professor of Economics Christopher F. Baum looked at states’ annual workplace homicide rates and any variations in those rates related to changes the states made to their firearm policies (either tightening or loosening them). In all, the researchers analyzed thirteen categories of firearm policy changes from 2011 to 2017. They then used federal data on workplace homicide rates from all fifty states to test whether a state’s workplace homicide rate went down in the years after lawmakers tightened a firearm policy. 

Were the states with the least restrictive gun laws to enact new policies and join those with the most restrictive laws, the researchers found, they could expect to see a 3.7 percent decline in workplace homicides, equivalent to preventing fifteen to sixteen such killings per year. Other studies have shown a relationship between a reduction in overall gun-related deaths and state-level firearm policy changes, Sabbath said, but the BC report is the first to demonstrate that workplace homicide rates can be influenced by stronger firearm laws. Sabbath said the findings may help contribute to debates on workplace safety and gun policy, and help companies set internal policies and restrictions. “While tightening gun policies cannot prevent every homicide at work,” she said, “our results suggest that state legislative action could mean that more people would return home to their families at the end of their workday.” ◽

 Clearing the Air

Globally, nearly 4 million people die each year from household air pollution caused by inefficient cooking practices and dirty fuels, which can also release black carbon into the atmosphere. For these reasons, Praveen Kumar, an assistant professor of global practice at BC’s School of Social Work, studies how energy use affects the health of people in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and advocates the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)—a smoke-free fuel that releases fewer pollutants than any other fuel except for electricity.

Kumar’s research, done in collaboration with Gautam N. Yadama, dean of the School of Social Work, focuses on the behavioral factors that can motivate communities to adopt the use of clean energy and to demand better environmental policies. In ongoing studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, Kumar has found that households in India and Rwanda “have been able to sustainably use LPG stoves at far higher levels when affordability, accessibility, and awareness are working in tandem.” 

Universal access to clean cooking technology is the goal, Kumar said, but reaching it will require that people who live in poor, rural regions are part of the conversation. “Most energy and environmental policies are developed by so-called highly qualified people, but these policies often lack voices from the ground,” he said. “If I had my way, I would create a strategy so the unheard voices from these poor, vulnerable communities could be heard when we plan and implement such policies.” – Jason Kornwitz

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