Physician and gun violence prevention expert Garen Wintemute inducted into National Academy of Medicine

Garen J. Wintemute, a nationally recognized expert in gun violence prevention and a pioneer in the field of injury epidemiology, was inducted into the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Oct. 18 during a ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Wintemute is a distinguished professor of emergency medicine and the Susan P. Baker-Stephen P. Teret Chair in Violence Prevention at UC Davis Health. He directs the Centers for Violence Prevention, which includes the California Firearm Violence Research Center and the Violence Prevention Research Program.

Election to NAM is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. It recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

The academy welcomed Wintemute as a leading researcher in firearm injury prevention, spanning more than four decades. “He brilliantly translates research findings to inform and evaluate gun violence policies and initiatives that are the basis of major policies at the state and federal levels,” NAM said in its announcement.

NAM is one of three advisory institutions that make up the nonprofit National Academies.

The class inducted this year “represents the most exceptional researchers and leaders in health and medicine, who have made significant breakthroughs, led the response to major public health challenges and advanced health equity,” said NAM President Victor J. Dzau.

Trip to Cambodia sets course for violence prevention

Wintemute attended medical school and completed his residency in family medicine at UC Davis. In 1981, he spent five months working in western Cambodia with the American Refugee Committee, in partnership with the Red Cross. At the time, the region was still devastated from the Khmer Rouge genocide. Amid gunfire and landmine explosions, Wintemute provided emergency medical care in a makeshift 120-bed hospital, sometimes performing amputations with only local anesthetics.

The experience profoundly shaped his understanding of the impact of violence on communities, families and individuals — ultimately steering him toward a career in public health and violence prevention.

After Cambodia, Wintemute attended Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and received a Master of Public Health degree in 1983.

He came back to Sacramento and began working as a UC Davis physician that same year.

Soon after, Wintemute began publishing violence prevention research, including a 1987 paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “When Children Shoot Children.” 

Since then, Wintemute has authored and co-authored more than 350 peer-reviewed journal articles focused primarily on violence prevention.

New center focuses on violence prevention

In 1991, Wintemute launched the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis.

In 1996, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stopped funding the program as a result of the Dickey Amendment, Wintemute used his own money over the subsequent years to keep the program going.

Wintemute has continued to work in the Emergency Department at UC Davis Medical Center, conduct innovative research, and mentor a new generation of violence prevention researchers.

His approach — treating violence as a health problem — continues to influence the field of violence prevention. The researchers emphasize data-driven analysis to understand and reduce firearm-related injuries and deaths.

Recent funding for the research has come from the CDC, the California Wellness Foundation, the Fund for a Safer Future, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the State of California.

Research from the Centers for Violence Prevention has examined community violence, extreme risk protection orders (sometimes known as red flag laws), suicide prevention, mass shootings, intimate partner violence, ghost guns, alcohol-related violence and more.

Wintemute’s current research focuses on the growing dangers of political violence in the United States.

Learn more about the research from the Centers for Violence Prevention.