The Epidemics Afoot and A Method to Seek a Cure for One Being Almost Ignored

There are more than just a couple of epidemics abreast. Epidemic is the word being used about both the rise of the Zika virus  [Hartford Courant: Connecticut Has 'Clear And Present Stake' In Zika Epidemic, Authorities Say, Jan 26] and the rise in the number of heroin deaths [Hartford Courant: Heroin-Related Overdose Deaths Soar In Connecticut, Feb, 14].  

The threat of Zika has Sen. Blumenthal and state leaders calling on Congress to approve more funding for the treatment and prevention of the rapidly spreading virus. Heroin overdose deaths deserved a statewide forum in which Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Connecticut’s Senators took part with Michael Botticelli, the nation's drug control policy director "in another effort to discuss and raise awareness about the opiate epidemic."

Not to diminish the importance of responding to these threats to health and life or the pain and sorrow of those who suffer from the effects of them, some say that arousing the public and holding summits may be good as sounding boards, but that these do not address the threats to health and life that epidemics present.

The same can be said of what amounts to another threat that many are now calling an epidemic: violence among young people in our cities. If the number of violent deaths in our cities was viewed as a contagious disease, the whole country would be alarmed and demand action. If one considers numbers alone, 2014 saw 12,585 violent deaths in the US, and in 2015 there were 13,309.

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls

By comparison, there were about 11,000 deaths due to overdose of heroin in 2014. https://d14rmgtrwzf5a.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/cdc-us-overdose-deaths-2014_jr-5.jpg

Rather than death, the Zika virus epidemic presents a major danger from other effects than death, mainly infant brain underdevelopment (microcephaly) and is spread by a type of mosquito (Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus).

Addressing violence with new stricter gun laws may be seen as part of an answer. Yet, in Connecticut in 2011, 73% of the 128 homicides involved guns. And of the 31 homicides in Hartford in 2015, 16% resulted from assaults with a knife. The percentages of violence in other forms cannot be addressed by stricter laws. Those of us who have taken part in the vigils held by Mothers United Against Violence in Hartford hear the wailing and crying of those who have the lives of their family members taken as a result of violence.

Raising the issue of violence as reaching levels of an out-of-control contagious disease, the TED Talk by Dr. Gary Slutkin, an epidemiologist, has been viewed online by over 688,000 people. His thesis is that since we've reversed the impact of so many diseases, we can do the same with violence. His 15-minute TED Talk is at:

https://www.ted.com/talks/gary_slutkin_let_s_treat_violence_like_a_contagious_disease?language=en

In cities across the country, there is an epidemic so spread out over space and time that it’s all but ignored. But these violent deaths are taking place in areas of our cities unseen or avoided by the majority of its citizens and, unfortunately, are considered the norm, So violent deaths continue as an “epidemic by accumulation” in our cities, state and country.

New methods of law enforcement, gun laws, town hall meetings and forums don’t seem to have had an effect. While these actions may show interest in finding solutions, they amount to hand wringing that doesn’t answer the need to address the systemic racism inherent in city policy-making. Addressing poverty and the lack of training for jobs that leads to employment for youth as an alternative to being drawn into street marketing of controlled substances demands something more.

The actions recommended by Dr. Slutkin were implemented in the Garfield Park Community of Chicago resulting in a 69% drop in the number of homicides. Dr. Slutkin offers an epidemiologist’s approach with a series of practical steps to mobilize against the epidemic of violence similar to those set up to address contagious disease. And he has now established “Cure Violence” as an organization offering this epidemiological response to violence. http://cureviolence.org/the-model/

Isn’t it time to take a multi-disciplinary approach to the epidemic of violence?