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Abstract

A culturally grounded, social-ecological framework to organize, synthesize, and guide research on intentional gun-related injuries can significantly advance prevention research. Specifically, such a framework can synthesize research across fields (e.g., suicide vs. violence) and across disciplines. Using it to organize research identifies our biases as researchers in terms of what we tend to study and at what system levels. For example, very little research examines the interactions among factors within and across systems, creating major blind spots in the field. Contextualizing research within a culturally grounded, social-ecological framework will prompt more research on the interplay of predictors across multiple levels of influence and build a more holistic conceptualization of factors contributing to intentional gun-related injuries. This contextualization, in turn, may be used to maximize the impact of public health prevention strategies.