About the project

Firearm-related harms are a serious public health issue in the US, where the number of firearm-related deaths has surpassed that of motor vehicle-related deaths. In order to reduce needless deaths by firearms, this project seeks to gain a fundamental understanding of the American “firearm ecosystem”, a complex system where firearm prevalence, legislation, media coverage, socioeconomic factors, the political state of affairs, and social phenomena are intertwined. Specifically, this project leverages advancements in information and network theories, data science methodologies, and hypothesis-driven experiments to provide insights into the causal roles of these potentially contributing factors and inform policy-makers regarding effective interventions.

 

This project investigates the firearm ecosystem on three different scales:

  1. macroscale, where cause-and-effect relationships between firearm prevalence and firearm-related harms are studied on a national level;
  2. mesoscale, where the ideological, economic, and political landscape underlying policy are explored on a state level; and
  3. microscale, where individual opinions about firearm safety are elucidated. Ultimately, the three scales will be integrated into a data-driven probabilistic model that allows for predictions and what-if analyses of the American firearm ecosystem.

WE-SAFE is a collaborative project that brings together experts from New York University, University of California at Los Angeles, Georgia State University, and Northeastern University, working to engineer a safer American firearm ecosystem.

The project is supported by the award “LEAP-HI: Understanding and Engineering the Ecosystem of Firearms: Prevalence, Safety, and Firearm-Related Harms” (CMMI-1953135) of the National Science Foundation, under the program Leading Engineering for America’s Prosperity, Health, and Infrastructure (LEAP HI).

Investigators:

Maurizio Porfiri (Principal Investigator)
James Macinko (Co-Principal Investigator)
Igor Belykh (Co-Principal Investigator)
Rifat Sipahi (Co-Principal Investigator)
Oded Nov (Co-Principal Investigator)

 

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