Armed with a grant from the National Institute of Justice, Arthur Kellermann and other faculty members are addressing what they consider to be the most pressing criminal justice and public health problem in America, firearm violence among youth.

he numbers are staggering. Between 1985 and 1991, gun-related deaths of 15- to 19-year-old whites doubled. For African-Americans in the same age range, they tripled. In 1990, more US teenagers died of gunshot wounds than from all natural causes of disease combined. Firearm-related mortality accounted for almost half of all deaths among African-American teens. One third of respondents to a 1993 Lou Harris poll of school children thought their chances of living to "a ripe old age" would probably be cut short by gun violence. In another survey, 45% of inner-city high school students reported being threatened with a gun or shot at on their way to or from school in the previous few years. And in a national survey, almost 60% of children polled in grades 6 through 12 said they "could get a handgun if they wanted one." These statistics are not just isolated numbers intended to sensationalize the growing problem of firearm violence among youth. Instead, they just brush the surface of what Arthur Kellermann, MD, MPH, calls "one of the most pressing criminal justice and public health problems in America. And the problem," he says, "is not going away." Dr. Kellermann directs the Emory Center for Injury Control, which has been awarded a grant by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to tackle juvenile gun violence in Atlanta. The grant allows the Center to evaluate Project PACT (Pulling America's Co mmunities Together), a federal violence prevention initiative in metro Atlanta. By gathering baseline and interval data, faculty hope to inform policy makers about which aspects of Project PACT work and which do not. Dr. Kellermann believes this problem-s olving orientation to firearm violence can influence "a substantial decline in juvenile violent crime," a decline that may spill over into the adult community. While the problem-solving approach to community violence is appealing in theory, it has rarely been given an adequate test in the real world setting, according to a report Dr. Kellermann presented to the NIJ. "Local governments and community groups hav e little money to spare," he writes, "and most are reluctant to allocate a significant proportion of their resources to program evaluation. As a result, community-based violence prevention programs are often introduced with little thought to documenting t heir actual effect." Another factor that differentiates the project's approach is its commitment to attack all sides of the problem at once. The investigators will define the scope and parameters of the problem, get a sense of its geographic distribution, and try to unders tand the contexts in which it exists through interviews with youth, public opinion polls, and statistics from a number of sources, such as the Georgia Crime Information Services, medical examiner records, and trauma and emergency center reports. This info rmation will then be fed to officials of Project Pact. "While we can't tell the groups involved in PACT what to do, we can suggest ways to focus those efforts," Dr. Kellermann says. "By defining the problem, we can identify promising interventions and help inform the public. By evaluating programs, we can give feedback to the originators, who can change their tactics if a program isn't working or reinforce successful efforts. "There is no single 'magic bullet' to deal with this problem," Dr. Kellermann continues. "No one tactic will work alone. We can't just 'get tough on crime' or focus only on mentoring or early childhood education. We need to throw everything at the prob lem at once. Everyone must do what they do best simultaneously." Project PACT will use three key strategies to reduce the illegal use of guns by youth in metro Atlanta. The first strategy is demand reduction, wherein community-based educational efforts, such as those sponsored by the Atlanta Project or the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, will discourage youths from carrying guns. The second attack point will be supply reduction, with law enforcement officials working to reduce the flow of firearms into youthful hands. Rehabilitation is the third strategy. It will be modeled after juvenile justice initiatives of "Project Gunstop" and the outreach efforts of community groups, such as Kids Alive and Loved. Dr. Kellermann believes metro Atlanta is well positioned to tackle gun violence. The city, rated by Money Magazine as the most violent of its size in America, must grapple with this major problem. But within Atlanta, local and national gro ups are already at work with federally funded and grass roots efforts to stem youth violent crime. "By joining with these groups," Dr. Kellermann says, "the Center for Injury Control will put public health on the line with law enforcement and community gr oups." Dr. Kellermann is prepared for either success or failure. "This is not a laboratory experiment where we can control every variable," he says. "We are flying by the seat of our pants. We are not trying to change the world, but we do believe that metro A tlanta can make a difference. We have to have the guts to try."