Charles Branas

Charles C. Branas
Alma mater	Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Drexel University
Known for	Gun violence research
Awards	Member of the American Epidemiological Society
Scientific career
Fields	Epidemiology
Institutions	Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, University of Pennsylvania, University of California, Berkeley
Thesis	A trauma resource allocation model for ambulances and hospitals (1997)
Website	https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/profile/charles-branas-phd

Charles C. Branas is an American epidemiologist and public health expert whose research integrates epidemiology, urban planning, emergency medicine, and social policy. He is a Gelman Professor of Epidemiology and the Chair of the department of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.^[1]

Branas is recognized for his studies on gun violence prevention, geographic access to healthcare, and place-based interventions to improve population health. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a widely cited advocate for public health-driven injury prevention strategies.^[2][3]

Branas received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Franklin & Marshall College in 1990, where he studied mathematics. He later earned an MS in 1993 from Drexel University and a PhD in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1998. He then pursued postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley, which he completed in 2000.^[1]

Early in his career, Branas worked in emergency medical services as a paramedic.^[4][5] He subsequently held research and teaching positions in clinical and public health settings, focusing on injury prevention and trauma care systems, including leading optimization studies for helicopter depot and trauma center locations that demonstrated a 34% gain in 60-minute access to care across twelve U.S. states.^[6][7] Prior to joining Columbia University, he was a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, where his work centered on the geography of medical care access and firearm-related injury.^[8]

In 2017, Branas was appointed Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He has led multiple large-scale research initiatives, including two Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded injury research centers.^[9][10]

Branas is known for studying how place-based and structural factors (the built environment, housing, and emergency response systems) influence health, safety, and access to care. His work integrates methods from epidemiology, public health, and urban planning to study issues such as gun violence, emergency medical systems, and neighborhood-level interventions. He has applied these approaches in U.S. and international settings, focusing on how the physical and social environment contributes to injury, disease, and health disparities.

A 2004 study of his showed that rural US residents were at greater risk of gun suicide than urban residents were of gun homicide, and was subsequently cited by the US Supreme Court. In 2009, he published the first study to show that individuals in possession of firearms were more than four times as likely to be shot than those not in possession.^[11] Also that year, he published a study showing that heavy drinkers were 2.67 more likely to be shot during an assault than people who did not drink at all. The study found that this association was largely because the drinkers spent so much time near liquor stores that sold alcohol to-go.^[12] In 2018, he led the first series of citywide randomized controlled trials (RCTs) showing that greening vacant lots, as well as requiring homeowners to put glass in their windows, resulted in significantly fewer gun assaults, shootings, and self-reported fear and depression among residents.^{[13][14][15][16][17]} His work has shown that approximately 15% of the spaces in US cities is vacant or abandoned, a total area about the size of Switzerland, making low-cost citywide interventions like these of high value to urban planners and policymakers.

Branas applies his public health research to real-world settings, including advocating for evidence-based gun violence prevention.^[18][19][20]

From 2020 to 2023, he served as Chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on Applied Research for Hazard Mitigation and Resilience. He is Co-Chair of the Firearm Violence Special Interest Group at the National Academy of Medicine and a founding board member of the Research Society for the Prevention of Firearm-Related Harms.^[21]

Branas is a co-founder of the Columbia Scientific Union for the Reduction of Gun Violence (SURGE), an interdisciplinary initiative that brings together researchers from across Columbia University to advance evidence-based strategies for gun violence prevention; they envision that “more science means less violence.”^[22] The initiative fosters collaboration among scholars in public health, education, medicine, law, and social work to generate new data and inform policy decisions.^[23]

He is active in organizing and chairing scientific meetings, including leadership roles with the Injury Control and Emergency Health Services Section of the American Public Health Association and co-organizing the National Research Conference on Firearm Injury Prevention.^[22]

• Elected Member, American Epidemiological Society, 2014^[1][24]
• Elected Member, National Academy of Medicine, 2019^[25]
• Outstanding Experimental Field Trial Award, American Society of Criminology, 2020
• Alumni Citation, Franklin & Marshall College, 2020^[26]

• Branas, Charles C.; Richmond, Therese S.; Culhane, Dennis P.; Ten Have, Thomas R.; Wiebe, Douglas J. (2009). "Investigating the Link Between Gun Possession and Gun Assault". American Journal of Public Health. 99 (11): 2034–2040. doi:10.2105/ajph.2008.143099. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 2759797. PMID 19762675.
• Branas, Charles C.; Cheney, Rose A.; MacDonald, John M.; Tam, Vicky W.; Jackson, Tara D.; Ten Have, Thomas R. (2011-12-01). "A difference-in-differences analysis of health, safety, and greening vacant urban space". American Journal of Epidemiology. 174 (11): 1296–1306. doi:10.1093/aje/kwr273. ISSN 1476-6256. PMC 3224254. PMID 22079788.
• Culyba, Alison J.; Jacoby, Sara F.; Richmond, Therese S.; Fein, Joel A.; Hohl, Bernadette C.; Branas, Charles C. (2016-05-01). "Modifiable Neighborhood Features Associated With Adolescent Homicide". JAMA Pediatrics. 170 (5): 473–480. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.4697. ISSN 2168-6211. PMC 4936414. PMID 26954939.
• Branas, Charles C.; South, Eugenia; Kondo, Michelle C.; Hohl, Bernadette C.; Bourgois, Philippe; Wiebe, Douglas J.; MacDonald, John M. (2018-02-26). "Citywide cluster randomized trial to restore blighted vacant land and its effects on violence, crime, and fear". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115 (12): 2946–2951. Bibcode:2018PNAS..115.2946B. doi:10.1073/pnas.1718503115. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 5866574. PMID 29483246.
• Reeping, Paul M.; Cerdá, Magdalena; Kalesan, Bindu; Wiebe, Douglas J.; Galea, Sandro; Branas, Charles C. (2019-03-06). "State gun laws, gun ownership, and mass shootings in the US: cross sectional time series". BMJ. 364: l542. doi:10.1136/bmj.l542. ISSN 0959-8138. PMC 6402045. PMID 30842105.
• South, Eugenia C.; MacDonald, John M.; Tam, Vicky W.; Ridgeway, Greg; Branas, Charles C. (2023-01-01). "Effect of Abandoned Housing Interventions on Gun Violence, Perceptions of Safety, and Substance Use in Black Neighborhoods: A Citywide Cluster Randomized Trial". JAMA Internal Medicine. 183 (1): 31–39. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2022.5460. ISSN 2168-6106. PMC 9857286. PMID 36469329.

• The New York Times, 2005^[27]
• New Scientist, 2009^[28]
• The Atlantic, 2011^[12]
• The Guardian, 2013^[29]
• Vox, 2016^[30]
• The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2017^[31]
• The New Yorker, 2018^[32]
• Scientific American, 2018^[33]
• Science, 2018^[15]
• WHYY, 2023^[34]