Shannon Guillot-Wright awarded nearly $2 million CDC grant for firearms research

Shannon Guillot-Wright, PhD, associate professor with the Department of Environmental Sciences and Occupational Safety at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, was awarded nearly $2 million from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).

The grant, “Longitudinal mixed-methods study of firearms among ethnically diverse adolescents and young adults,” will allow a groundbreaking study aimed at addressing firearm injury and violence among adolescents and young adults. This rare opportunity will shed light on firearm-related issues as a critical public health epidemic.

Guillot-Wright, a co-investigator and affiliate faculty with the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (SWCOEH) and the Center for Health Equity, is primarily responsible for the policy aim, which serves as the vehicle to transport validated materials and information to decision-makers. The primary investigator is Jeffrey Temple, PhD, of The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

“Without translation, dissemination, and structured systems change, research findings and content expert feedback would never reach the intended beneficiaries,” Guillot-Wright said. “The policy team will work in concert with the entire research team by translating findings, best practices, tools, approaches, technologies, guidelines, and policy recommendations into accessible resources, disseminating them to the best audiences with the highest likelihood of impact, and building long-term relationships and coalitions to work towards sustainable systems change.”

Guillot-Wright has accumulated significant experience with health policy research and successfully recruited and retained difficult-to-reach populations, such as bipartisan federal policymakers during an impeachment trial. She will leverage these experiences to further understand how to create equitable policy solutions to reduce firearm injury and violence.

In addition to the SWCOEH, several organizations are involved in the grant, including: PEOPLE Centered Lab, UTMB, Brown University and Georgia State University.

The SWCOEH provides graduate-level training opportunities for occupational and environmental health professionals through our industrial hygiene, occupational and environmental medicine, occupational epidemiology, and Total Worker Health.