Educational Activities

The OHSU Gun Violence Prevention Research Center (GVPRC) Speakers Bureau is a team of interprofessional clinicians and educators who offer interactive presentations on firearm injury epidemiology and policy, the importance of healthcare providers talking with patients about firearm injury prevention, and recommendations on how to have these sometimes-challenging conversations. The GVPRC Speakers Bureau has given a variety of presentations, including: workshop sessions for clinicians and students, presentations at medical conferences, and presentations at OHSU departmental Grand Rounds. In November of 2023, the GVPRC Speakers Bureau also collaborated with other clinicians and public health professionals to implement a session for all second-year medical students focused on clinical and advocacy skills for firearm injury prevention. For more information or to request a virtual or in-person presentation, please submit an inquiry here .

The Journal Club consists of researchers, faculty, students, healthcare professionals, and community members who meet every two months to discuss research articles related to firearm injury and firearm injury prevention. The Journal Club is focused on the causes and consequences of gun violence and firearm injury, and on advancing best practices for prevention and healing. The principles of a public health approach, anti-racism, community engagement, and collaboration are applied to these discussions.

Dr. Carlson and her team teach a course in the Department of Epidemiology at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health entitled, Injury and Violence Prevention: A Public Health Approach. The course introduces graduate students at the School of Public Health to the causes and consequences of traumatic injury and violence and the public health approach to injury and violence prevention. Conceptual frameworks that consider behavioral and environmental approaches to injury prevention are discussed as well as the upstream socio-economic underpinnings of injury and violence causation. A range of injury topics across the lifespan are studied, including child abuse and neglect, occupational injury, drug overdose, motor vehicle injuries, firearm injury, state-sanctioned violence, and interpersonal and self-harm. The course involves didactic lectures as well as small and large group discussion, group activities, and individual oral and written work.

Dr. Carlson and her team mentor numerous students, fellows, and other trainees at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health and at the VA Portland’s Center to improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC) in health services research, epidemiology, and the science of injury and violence prevention. Since 2017, we have had a Portland VA Research Foundation (PVARF) Undergraduate Research Fellow join our team for the summer who has gained hands-on research experience, built and enhanced their professional skills, learned about the VA and veterans’ health research, and gained a greater understanding of public health and injury and violence prevention research topics. Graduate students at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health also work with our team in fulfillment of the requirements for their PhD dissertation or MPH practice experience, which allows students an opportunity to apply and demonstrate their public health skills and competencies in a research setting. We also provide mentoring and guidance to graduate students for their MPH integrative project, a culminating exercise which results in a publishable written product.