Jon S Vernick
Biographic Data
| ID | 6060138 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jon S Vernick |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jon S |
| FAMILY NAME | Vernick |
| SIGNATURE | VERNICK J S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Johns Hopkins University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6480-6105 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 141 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The relationship between joining a US free trade agreement and processed food sales, 2002–2016: A comparative interrupted time-series analysis
Objective: To examine changes in sales of highly processed foods, including infant formulas, in countries joining free trade agreements (FTAs) with the US. Design: Annual country-level data for food and beverage sales come from Euromonitor International. Analyses are conducted in a comparative interrupted time-series (CITS) framework using multivariate random-effects linear models, adjusted for key confounders: gross domestic product (GDP) per ca…
Purchaser Licensing, Point-of-Sale Background Check Laws, and Firearm Homicide and Suicide in 4 US States, 1985–2017
Objectives. To estimate and compare the effects of state background check policies on firearm-related mortality in 4 US states. Methods. Annual data from 1985 to 2017 were used to examine Maryland and Pennsylvania, which implemented point-of-sale comprehensive background check (CBC) laws for handgun purchasers; Connecticut, which adopted a handgun purchaser licensing law; and Missouri, which repealed a similar law. Using synthetic control methods…
Local Public Health Policymakers’ Views on State Preemption: Results of a National Survey, 2018
Objectives. To learn about local health policymakers’ experiences and responses to preemption—the ability of a higher level of government to limit policy activity at a lower level. Methods. Between March and June 2018, we conducted an anonymous Web-based survey of mayors and health officials in US cities with populations of 150 000 or more. We used descriptive statistics to analyze multiple-choice responses. We analyzed open text responses qualit…
Law, Ethics, and Conversations between Physicians and Patients about Firearms in the Home
Firearms in the home pose a risk to household members, including homicide, suicide, and unintentional deaths. Medical societies urge clinicians to counsel patients about those risks as part of sound medical practice. Depending on the circumstances, clinicians might recommend safe firearm storage, temporary removal of the firearm from the home, or other measures. Certain state firearm laws, however, might present legal and ethical challenges for p…
Association between Firearm Laws and Homicide in Urban Counties
Public Support for Gun Violence Prevention Policies Among Gun Owners and Non–Gun Owners in 2017
Objectives. To compare public support for 24 different gun policies between gun owners and non–gun owners in 2017. Methods. We fielded a national public opinion survey in January 2017 using an online panel to measure US adults’ support for 24 gun policies. We compared support among gun owners and non–gun owners. Results. For 23 of the 24 policies examined, most respondents supported restricting or regulating gun ownership. Only 8 of 24 policies h…
Differing Perspectives on Analyzing Data Related to Firearms and Suicide
Differing Perspectives on Analyzing Data Related to Firearms and Suicide Affiliation Elizabeth A. Stuart PhD, Cassandra Crifasi PhD, Alex McCourt JD, MPH, Jon S. Vernick JD, MPH, and Daniel Webster ScDAll of the authors are with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD.CopyRightCorrespondence should be sent to Elizabeth A. Stuart, PhD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N Broadway, Room 839, Baltimore, …
More States Should Regulate Pain Management Clinics to Promote Public Health
AffiliationsLainie Rutkow and Jon S. Vernick are with the Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD. G. Caleb Alexander is with the Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Division of General Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore
Association Between Connecticut’s Permit-to-Purchase Handgun Law and Homicides
Objectives. We sought to estimate the effect of Connecticut’s implementation of a handgun permit-to-purchase law in October 1995 on subsequent homicides. Methods. Using the synthetic control method, we compared Connecticut’s homicide rates after the law’s implementation to rates we would have expected had the law not been implemented. To estimate the counterfactual, we used longitudinal data from a weighted combination of comparison states identi…
Legal Action Against Health Claims on Foods and Beverages Marketed to Youth
The prevalence of obesity among US children raises numerous health concerns. One pathway to reduce childhood obesity is by decreasing energy intake through the ingestion of fewer calories. Yet, food and beverage manufacturers often promote energy-dense items for children via varied health claims. Deceptive health claims are prohibited, and may be addressed through litigation or governmental regulatory efforts. While the amount of legal action aga…
Effects of the Repeal of Missouri’s Handgun Purchaser Licensing Law on Homicides
Political Factors Affecting the Enactment of State-Level Clean Indoor Air Laws
Objectives. We examined the effects of key political institutional factors on the advancement of state-level clean indoor air laws. Methods. We performed an observational study of state-level clean indoor air law enactment among all 50 US states from 1993 to 2010 by using extended Cox hazard models to assess risk of enacting a relevant law. Results. During the 18-year period from 1993 to 2010, 28 states passed a law covering workplaces, 33 states…
Creating Smoke-Free Places Through the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities
In some high-, middle-, and low-income countries, law has been employed to limit individuals’ secondhand smoke exposure. Innovative legal tools are still needed, especially in low- and middle-income countries where smoking prevalence continues to rise. For some persons with severe respiratory conditions, the presence of secondhand smoke is intolerable and prevents their entrance into restaurants and other venues. With its adoption of the Conventi…
Temporal Association between Federal Gun Laws and the Diversion of Guns to Criminals in Milwaukee
Effects of Baltimore’s Safe Streets Program on Gun Violence: A Replication of Chicago’s CeaseFire Program
Changing the Constitutional Landscape for Firearms: The US Supreme Court's Recent Second Amendment Decisions
In 2 recent cases—with important implications for public health practitioners, courts, and researchers—the US Supreme Court changed the landscape for judging the constitutionality of firearm laws under the Constitution's Second Amendment. In District of Columbia v Heller (2008), the court determined for the first time that the Second Amendment grants individuals a personal right to possess handguns in their home. In McDonald v City of Chicago (20…
Federal Tax Law Allows Academics to Lobby
As public health lawyers and long-time advocates for the use of law as a tool to improve the public's health, we applaud Longest and Huber's call for more direct involvement by public health academics in public policy advocacy.1 Their description of the law governing lobbying by university employees, however, suggested much more restriction on such activity than federal law actually imposes. We write to correct that misimpression. First, contrary…
Effects of State-Level Firearm Seller Accountability Policies on Firearm Trafficking
Violence Against Women and the U.S. Supreme Court: Recent Challenges and Opportunities for Advocates and Practitioners
The U.S. Supreme Court has frequently grappled with violence against women, with three major cases decided since 2000. Although the law can be a powerful tool to minimize the risk of violence against women, it can also be an obstacle to interventions. As legislators, prosecutors, and advocates implement legal interventions to respond to violence against women, the Supreme Court has increasingly been called on to interpret these laws and assess th…
Availability of Litigation as a Public Health Tool for Firearm Injury Prevention: Comparison of Guns, Vaccines, and Motor Vehicles
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), enacted in 2005, grants the firearm industry broad immunity from liability. The PLCAA not only prevents most people from receiving compensation for their firearm-related injuries, it erodes litigation’s ability to serve its public health role of providing manufacturers with a financial incentive to make their products safer. When the viability of the vaccine industry was threatened in the 198…
Effects of a Gun Dealer's Change in Sales Practices on the Supply of Guns to Criminals
The Baltimore Youth Ammunition Initiative: A Model Application of Local Public Health Authority in Preventing Gun Violence
In 2002, the Baltimore City Health Department, in collaboration with the Baltimore Police Department and the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, launched the Youth Ammunition Initiative. The initiative addressed Baltimore’s problem of youth gun violence by targeting illegal firearm ammunition sales to the city’s young people. The initiative included undercover “sting” investigations of local businesses and issuance of health departm…
Addressing the “Risk Environment” for Injection Drug Users: The Mysterious Case of the Missing Cop
Ecological models of the determinants of health and the consequent importance of structural interventions have been widely accepted, but using these models in research and practice has been challenging. Examining the role of criminal law enforcement in the “risk environment” of injection drug users (IDUs) provides an opportunity to apply structural thinking to the health problems associated with drug use. This article reviews international eviden…
Making Vehicles Safer
In his editorial “A New Traffic Safety Vision for the United States,”1 Evans argues that litigation has harmed the US motor vehicle safety effort and that interventions focused on changing the behavior of drivers, rather than the safe design of vehicles, are “overwhelmingly” more important. Although one might not realize it from Evans’s editorial, the reduction in the risk of fatal motor vehicle crash is one of the major success stories of public…
Public opinion about syringe exchange programmes in the USA: An analysis of national surveys
Effects of Baltimore’s Safe Streets Program on Gun Violence: A Replication of Chicago’s CeaseFire Program
Effects of the Repeal of Missouri’s Handgun Purchaser Licensing Law on Homicides
Association between Firearm Laws and Homicide in Urban Counties
Effects of State-Level Firearm Seller Accountability Policies on Firearm Trafficking
Association Between Connecticut’s Permit-to-Purchase Handgun Law and Homicides
Objectives. We sought to estimate the effect of Connecticut’s implementation of a handgun permit-to-purchase law in October 1995 on subsequent homicides. Methods. Using the synthetic control method, we compared Connecticut’s homicide rates after the law’s implementation to rates we would have expected had the law not been implemented. To estimate the counterfactual, we used longitudinal data from a weighted combination of comparison states identi…
Public Support for Gun Violence Prevention Policies Among Gun Owners and Non–Gun Owners in 2017
Objectives. To compare public support for 24 different gun policies between gun owners and non–gun owners in 2017. Methods. We fielded a national public opinion survey in January 2017 using an online panel to measure US adults’ support for 24 gun policies. We compared support among gun owners and non–gun owners. Results. For 23 of the 24 policies examined, most respondents supported restricting or regulating gun ownership. Only 8 of 24 policies h…
Purchaser Licensing, Point-of-Sale Background Check Laws, and Firearm Homicide and Suicide in 4 US States, 1985–2017
Objectives. To estimate and compare the effects of state background check policies on firearm-related mortality in 4 US states. Methods. Annual data from 1985 to 2017 were used to examine Maryland and Pennsylvania, which implemented point-of-sale comprehensive background check (CBC) laws for handgun purchasers; Connecticut, which adopted a handgun purchaser licensing law; and Missouri, which repealed a similar law. Using synthetic control methods…
Effects of a Gun Dealer's Change in Sales Practices on the Supply of Guns to Criminals
Political Factors Affecting the Enactment of State-Level Clean Indoor Air Laws
Objectives. We examined the effects of key political institutional factors on the advancement of state-level clean indoor air laws. Methods. We performed an observational study of state-level clean indoor air law enactment among all 50 US states from 1993 to 2010 by using extended Cox hazard models to assess risk of enacting a relevant law. Results. During the 18-year period from 1993 to 2010, 28 states passed a law covering workplaces, 33 states…
Flawed gun policy research could endanger public safety
A highly publicized recent study by Lott and Mustard concludes that laws easing restrictions on licenses for carrying concealed firearms in public substantially reduce violent crime. Several serious flaws in the study render the authors' conclusions insupportable. These flaws include misclassification of gun-carrying laws, endogeneity of predictor variables, omission of confounding variables, and failure to control for the cyclical nature of crim…
Local Public Health Policymakers’ Views on State Preemption: Results of a National Survey, 2018
Objectives. To learn about local health policymakers’ experiences and responses to preemption—the ability of a higher level of government to limit policy activity at a lower level. Methods. Between March and June 2018, we conducted an anonymous Web-based survey of mayors and health officials in US cities with populations of 150 000 or more. We used descriptive statistics to analyze multiple-choice responses. We analyzed open text responses qualit…
Temporal Association between Federal Gun Laws and the Diversion of Guns to Criminals in Milwaukee
Changing the Constitutional Landscape for Firearms: The US Supreme Court's Recent Second Amendment Decisions
In 2 recent cases—with important implications for public health practitioners, courts, and researchers—the US Supreme Court changed the landscape for judging the constitutionality of firearm laws under the Constitution's Second Amendment. In District of Columbia v Heller (2008), the court determined for the first time that the Second Amendment grants individuals a personal right to possess handguns in their home. In McDonald v City of Chicago (20…
Lobbying and advocacy for the public's health: What are the limits for nonprofit organizations
Nonprofit organizations play an important role in advocating for the public's health in the United States. This article describes the rules under US law for lobbying by nonprofit organizations. The 2 most common kinds of non-profits working to improve the public's health are "public charities" and "social welfare organizations." Although social welfare organizations may engage in relatively unlimited lobbying, public charities may not engage in "…
Firearms and health: The right to be armed with accurate information about the Second Amendment
An organized campaign by groups such as the National Rifle Association has sought to convince policymakers and others that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution grants an unfettered right to individuals to possess any firearm, free from federal or state regulation. Although advocates may debate the meaning that should be given to the Second Amendment, under the American legal system the meaning of any particular constitutional provision is …
Violence Against Women and the U.S. Supreme Court: Recent Challenges and Opportunities for Advocates and Practitioners
The U.S. Supreme Court has frequently grappled with violence against women, with three major cases decided since 2000. Although the law can be a powerful tool to minimize the risk of violence against women, it can also be an obstacle to interventions. As legislators, prosecutors, and advocates implement legal interventions to respond to violence against women, the Supreme Court has increasingly been called on to interpret these laws and assess th…
More States Should Regulate Pain Management Clinics to Promote Public Health
AffiliationsLainie Rutkow and Jon S. Vernick are with the Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD. G. Caleb Alexander is with the Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Division of General Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore
A proposal for the mandatory inclusion of helmets with new children's bicycles
To reduce bicycle-related head injuries in children, we propose new regulations be established that mandate the inclusion of approved helmets with the sale of all new children's bicycles. Currently, purchasing a helmet is a separate economic decision that acts as a barrier to helmet ownership and use. The inclusion of a helmet with the bicycle would markedly increase helmet ownership. The increased demand would reduce the manufacturing cost per h…
Firearms and health: The right to be armed with accurate information about the Second Amendment
An organized campaign by groups such as the National Rifle Association has sought to convince policymakers and others that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution grants an unfettered right to individuals to possess any firearm, free from federal or state regulation. Although advocates may debate the meaning that should be given to the Second Amendment, under the American legal system the meaning of any particular constitutional provision is …
Vernick and Teret Respond
Vernick and Teret Respond Jon S. Vernick, and Stephen P. Teret CopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.84.11.1855 Published Online: October 07, 2011
Flawed gun policy research could endanger public safety
A highly publicized recent study by Lott and Mustard concludes that laws easing restrictions on licenses for carrying concealed firearms in public substantially reduce violent crime. Several serious flaws in the study render the authors' conclusions insupportable. These flaws include misclassification of gun-carrying laws, endogeneity of predictor variables, omission of confounding variables, and failure to control for the cyclical nature of crim…
Webster and Colleagues Respond: No Proof That Shall-Issue Laws Reduce Violence
On the Other Hand individual dummy variables for each county and controlling for individual time trends in each county in difference estimates were among the many ways that we controlled for initial legal differences across counties. Changes in other gun laws were also accounted for, such as the existence of waiting periods (which are synonymous with background checks), the length of waiting periods, and penalties for using guns during the commis…
Lobbying and advocacy for the public's health: What are the limits for nonprofit organizations
Nonprofit organizations play an important role in advocating for the public's health in the United States. This article describes the rules under US law for lobbying by nonprofit organizations. The 2 most common kinds of non-profits working to improve the public's health are "public charities" and "social welfare organizations." Although social welfare organizations may engage in relatively unlimited lobbying, public charities may not engage in "…
Public opinion about syringe exchange programmes in the USA: An analysis of national surveys
Addressing the “Risk Environment” for Injection Drug Users: The Mysterious Case of the Missing Cop
Ecological models of the determinants of health and the consequent importance of structural interventions have been widely accepted, but using these models in research and practice has been challenging. Examining the role of criminal law enforcement in the “risk environment” of injection drug users (IDUs) provides an opportunity to apply structural thinking to the health problems associated with drug use. This article reviews international eviden…
Making Vehicles Safer
In his editorial “A New Traffic Safety Vision for the United States,”1 Evans argues that litigation has harmed the US motor vehicle safety effort and that interventions focused on changing the behavior of drivers, rather than the safe design of vehicles, are “overwhelmingly” more important. Although one might not realize it from Evans’s editorial, the reduction in the risk of fatal motor vehicle crash is one of the major success stories of public…
The Baltimore Youth Ammunition Initiative: A Model Application of Local Public Health Authority in Preventing Gun Violence
In 2002, the Baltimore City Health Department, in collaboration with the Baltimore Police Department and the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, launched the Youth Ammunition Initiative. The initiative addressed Baltimore’s problem of youth gun violence by targeting illegal firearm ammunition sales to the city’s young people. The initiative included undercover “sting” investigations of local businesses and issuance of health departm…
Effects of a Gun Dealer's Change in Sales Practices on the Supply of Guns to Criminals
Availability of Litigation as a Public Health Tool for Firearm Injury Prevention: Comparison of Guns, Vaccines, and Motor Vehicles
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), enacted in 2005, grants the firearm industry broad immunity from liability. The PLCAA not only prevents most people from receiving compensation for their firearm-related injuries, it erodes litigation’s ability to serve its public health role of providing manufacturers with a financial incentive to make their products safer. When the viability of the vaccine industry was threatened in the 198…
Effects of State-Level Firearm Seller Accountability Policies on Firearm Trafficking
Violence Against Women and the U.S. Supreme Court: Recent Challenges and Opportunities for Advocates and Practitioners
The U.S. Supreme Court has frequently grappled with violence against women, with three major cases decided since 2000. Although the law can be a powerful tool to minimize the risk of violence against women, it can also be an obstacle to interventions. As legislators, prosecutors, and advocates implement legal interventions to respond to violence against women, the Supreme Court has increasingly been called on to interpret these laws and assess th…
Federal Tax Law Allows Academics to Lobby
As public health lawyers and long-time advocates for the use of law as a tool to improve the public's health, we applaud Longest and Huber's call for more direct involvement by public health academics in public policy advocacy.1 Their description of the law governing lobbying by university employees, however, suggested much more restriction on such activity than federal law actually imposes. We write to correct that misimpression. First, contrary…
Changing the Constitutional Landscape for Firearms: The US Supreme Court's Recent Second Amendment Decisions
In 2 recent cases—with important implications for public health practitioners, courts, and researchers—the US Supreme Court changed the landscape for judging the constitutionality of firearm laws under the Constitution's Second Amendment. In District of Columbia v Heller (2008), the court determined for the first time that the Second Amendment grants individuals a personal right to possess handguns in their home. In McDonald v City of Chicago (20…
Temporal Association between Federal Gun Laws and the Diversion of Guns to Criminals in Milwaukee
Effects of Baltimore’s Safe Streets Program on Gun Violence: A Replication of Chicago’s CeaseFire Program
Creating Smoke-Free Places Through the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities
In some high-, middle-, and low-income countries, law has been employed to limit individuals’ secondhand smoke exposure. Innovative legal tools are still needed, especially in low- and middle-income countries where smoking prevalence continues to rise. For some persons with severe respiratory conditions, the presence of secondhand smoke is intolerable and prevents their entrance into restaurants and other venues. With its adoption of the Conventi…
Effects of the Repeal of Missouri’s Handgun Purchaser Licensing Law on Homicides
Political Factors Affecting the Enactment of State-Level Clean Indoor Air Laws
Objectives. We examined the effects of key political institutional factors on the advancement of state-level clean indoor air laws. Methods. We performed an observational study of state-level clean indoor air law enactment among all 50 US states from 1993 to 2010 by using extended Cox hazard models to assess risk of enacting a relevant law. Results. During the 18-year period from 1993 to 2010, 28 states passed a law covering workplaces, 33 states…
Association Between Connecticut’s Permit-to-Purchase Handgun Law and Homicides
Objectives. We sought to estimate the effect of Connecticut’s implementation of a handgun permit-to-purchase law in October 1995 on subsequent homicides. Methods. Using the synthetic control method, we compared Connecticut’s homicide rates after the law’s implementation to rates we would have expected had the law not been implemented. To estimate the counterfactual, we used longitudinal data from a weighted combination of comparison states identi…
Legal Action Against Health Claims on Foods and Beverages Marketed to Youth
The prevalence of obesity among US children raises numerous health concerns. One pathway to reduce childhood obesity is by decreasing energy intake through the ingestion of fewer calories. Yet, food and beverage manufacturers often promote energy-dense items for children via varied health claims. Deceptive health claims are prohibited, and may be addressed through litigation or governmental regulatory efforts. While the amount of legal action aga…
Differing Perspectives on Analyzing Data Related to Firearms and Suicide
Differing Perspectives on Analyzing Data Related to Firearms and Suicide Affiliation Elizabeth A. Stuart PhD, Cassandra Crifasi PhD, Alex McCourt JD, MPH, Jon S. Vernick JD, MPH, and Daniel Webster ScDAll of the authors are with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD.CopyRightCorrespondence should be sent to Elizabeth A. Stuart, PhD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 N Broadway, Room 839, Baltimore, …
More States Should Regulate Pain Management Clinics to Promote Public Health
AffiliationsLainie Rutkow and Jon S. Vernick are with the Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD. G. Caleb Alexander is with the Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Division of General Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore
Medicine (27 works) · Law (26 works) · Political science (26 works) · Environmental health (21 works) · Gun Ownership and Violence Research (17 works) · Poison control (16 works) · Business (13 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Suicide prevention (12 works) · Criminology (11 works)