Stoneleigh Fellow Ruth Abaya is a member of a new Safe States Alliance working group to strengthen data, research, and advocacy on gun violence.
Ruth Abaya, an attending physician in the emergency department at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, has witnessed the ravages of gun violence in her city firsthand.
“In the emergency department, we see young people in the trauma bay who have been injured by firearms, sometimes numerous times,” Abaya says. “We also see the immediate impact on relatives and community members who are at their bedside.”
These experiences sparked her desire to intervene and prevent violence, not just treat its effects. Abaya has served as program manager for the Injury Prevention Program at the Philadelphia Department of Health, and today she is the senior director of health systems and community violence intervention integration for the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention.
