Violence in Cities is a Public Health Crisis: A Case Study from Atlanta

In addition to the rippling effect violence has on families and communities— it also collapses systems and institutions like hospitals, universities, nonprofits, and city governments. This session will use the case study of Atlanta, Georgia— America’s city with the highest inequality gap— to take a look at the crisis of violence in cities and explore the holistic approach required to addressing it. We’ll be joined by Jacquel Clemons Moore, who has spent her career setting up ecosystems in cities to reduce and interrupt violence, and Ricky “Dip” Usher, who works in the streets of Atlanta’s Mechanicsville neighborhood as a violence interrupter, to discuss what addressing the symptoms and the root causes of violence looks like and what it takes. Both Jacquel and Dip also work directly with Grady Memorial Hospital— the Atlanta region’s main trauma center and safety net— and have established a hospital based violence intervention program that addresses these issues in the ER and in the streets. The session will be moderated by Rohit Malhotra, who is the executive director of the Center for Civic Innovation— an organization, focused on advancing policy change in the areas of safety and justice, education, and democracy. He has worked to provide technical assistance, training, and coaching for over a dozen organizations that are focused on violence reduction in Atlanta and translating their work for local policymakers to learn from and act on.