Pina Mendillo Violano

I am a Clinical Associate Professor of Nursing and Director, Community Engagement at Quinnipiac University's School of Nursing. Previously, I served as Manager, Injury & Violence Prevention Program at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) & Yale New Haven Children's Hospital Level 1 Trauma Centers. I have longstanding leadership and expertise in reducing unintentional and intentional injuries through the development and implementation of evidenced-based injury prevention strategies on a local, state, and national level that in 2007, led to the designation of Injury Free Coalition for Kids of New Haven for the Children's Hospital for which I was the Director and Principal Investigator for over 12 years. I am also a registered nurse with over 40 years' experience in critical care, emergency & trauma care, nursing education and research and hold a PhD in Public Health with a concentration in Community Health Promotion & Education.

My research and community led efforts have centered on the use of community based participatory research principles. In particular, the reduction of gun related injuries and death, gun buy-back programs as a safe venue to voluntarily remove unwanted guns, understanding firearm storage practices, educating gun shop owners on the risk factors for suicide, evaluating the relevance of adapting a disaster-preparedness approach to gun violence and, specifically, the relationship between perceived collective efficacy, its subscales of social cohesion and informal social control, and exposure to gun violence. I have served as a PI or Co-PI for research projects in injury and violence prevention. I have over 30 years of experience working with community members and leaders throughout the black and brown communities. Specifically, I have collaborated with three street-based outreach worker programs to reduce gun violence among 13–24-year-olds and ex-offenders through education, mentoring, advocacy and evidence-based interventions in the Connecticut cities of Bridgeport, Hamden, Hartford, New Haven and West Haven. My work and strong leadership culminated in the creation of Connecticut's first hospital-based violence intervention program (HVIP) at YNHH which is now being used as a model statewide and nationwide.

I created and sustained a very effective and successful hospital-based injury prevention and research program, that received local, statewide, and national recognition, including best-practices commendations from the American College of Surgeons Verification Committee, and that led to four successful Trauma Center re-verifications for Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale New Haven Children's Hospital.

My work in policy includes crafting public health policy, legislation and testimony for the State of Connecticut (CT) that aims to prevent newborn deaths from unsafe sleep practices; motor vehicle related injuries & death, specifically: heatstroke among children who are left in a hot car; graduated driver licensing for teens; expansion of child passenger safety laws and rear seatbelt requirement for all passengers. Most recently, I have collaborated on laws that expand requirements for safe storage of firearms, and the creation of the Statewide Commission on Community Gun Violence Prevention and Intervention that has led to the newly created Office of Gun Violence Prevention housed in the Department of Public Health.

I have served on several National Boards including Injury Free Coalition for Kids (elected), Pediatric Trauma Society (Founding member & Treasurer (elected)), Trauma Centers of America Association (appointed), Trauma Prevention Coalition (appointed), American Trauma Society (elected-active), and International Advisory Council on Policy, Sigma Theta Tau International (appointed). I am appointed member of CT's Child Fatality Review Panel by the CT General Assembly Speaker of the House of Representative, CT's National Violent Death Reporting System Advisory Committee (appoi