The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research hosted the 2023 E.R. Brown Symposium: Addressing Gun Violence as a Public Health Epidemic on Monday, February 13, 2023, on Zoom.

The symposium brought together an outstanding group of researchers, advocates, community leaders, and policymakers working to understand and stem gun violence, and sharing new research and perspectives to inform policy and programs to increase public safety.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta provided the keynote address and shared his vision for how policy can make a difference in the state.

Featured panelists and speakers included: ​

• Joan Asarnow, Professor, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
• Kerith Conron, Research Director, Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law
• Christian Heyne, Gun violence survivor and Vice President of Policy and Programs, Brady Chris Knoepke, Assistant Professor, Research, University of Colorado Denver – Anschutz Medical Campus
• Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz, Assistant Professor, Violence Prevention Research Program, UC Davis
• Brian Malte, Executive Director, Hope and Heal Fund
• Julie Nagasako, Deputy Director, Office of Policy and Planning, California Department of Public Health
• Mark A. Peterson, Professor and Interim Chair, Department of Public Policy, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
• Jesenia Pizarro, Editor, Homicide Studies, and Professor, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University
• Fernando Rejón, Executive Director, Urban Peace Institute
• Refujio “Cuco” Rodriguez, Chief Equity and Program Officer, Hope and Heal Fund
• Michael Rodriguez, Director, California Alliance of Academics and Communities for Public Health Equity
• George Tita, Professor, Criminology, Law, and Society, UC Irvine Andrea Welsing, Executive Director, Los Angeles County Office of Violence Prevention

Ninez Ponce, UCLA CHPR director and chair of the Health Policy and Management Department at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, provided opening and closing remarks and moderated the event.

The E.R. Brown Symposium, named after UCLA CHPR founder E. Richard "Rick" Brown, is an annual event that honors the life of Rick Brown, who spent his life advocating strongly for a health-care-for-all system that would ensure health services for every Californian.