Deborah Azrael

As Director of Research of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center (HICRC), Dr. Azrael has over 25 years’ experience conducting and leading grant-funded research on firearm violence, injury surveillance and suicide prevention. Dr. Azrael was the co-director of the pilot for what became the National Violent Death Reporting System (a 50-state surveillance system that collects data on all homicides, suicides, and unintentional firearm deaths), and directed an 8 year effort, the Boston Data Project, that used in-person surveys of Boston high school students and RDD surveys of Boston adults to understand both individual- and neighborhood-level predictors of violence and mental health related outcomes for youth in Boston. Much of Dr. Azrael’s scholarship, especially over the past decade, has focused on studies designed to inform interventions to reduce suicide. Dr. Azrael has also designed and analyzed surveys of US adults about gun related behaviors and beliefs, written dozens of articles exploring the relationship between access to firearms and suicide, and about the ways in which firearm owners store their guns. Dr. Azrael received her PhD in Health Policy (concentration in Statistics and Evaluative Sciences) from Harvard University. In 2015, Dr. Azrael was named one of the 10 Americans who shaped the gun debate by The Trace. Dr. Azrael’s research publications can be found at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1Re55NENwwu5v/bibliography/public/