The Importance of Feeling: The Possibilities of Care in Hospital-based Violence Intervention Programs

• In Event: Gunshot Survivorship: Navigating Personal Care, Family, and Safety

Abstract

There are significant racial health disparities associated with gun violence, including in the rates of victimization and prevalence of long-term physical injury and mental illness. Hospital-based violence intervention programs (HVIPs) have been identified as comprehensive service providers for individuals who are violently injured and seek to address these disparities. However, there has been little research on what Black men who survive gunshot wounds actually experience in terms of health, trauma, recovery, and healing. Drawing from over one year of ethnographic research at the two busiest HVIPs in Maryland, this study explores how Black men who survived gunshot wounds interpreted their emotions to make sense of the ways in which trauma shaped their health and social experiences. In examining how trauma impacts the families of people who survive gunshot wounds, this research emphasizes the importance of expanding services in HVIPs. Findings highlight how emotions serve as a key feature of participants’ understandings of their health, need for care, recovery, and what constitutes viable gun violence prevention efforts. In emphasizing the importance of feeling, participants outlined the foundation for a new politics of care—one predicated upon social change and racial justice.

Author

• William Wical, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Gun Violence Solutions Department of Health Policy and Management