Dr. Julia Fleckman, VPI Associate Director and Assistant Professor at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and Dr. Sharven Taghavi, trauma surgeon and Assistant Professor at Tulane University School of Medicine provided insight and information in a NOLA.com article entitled "Pregnant women in New Orleans are violently injured at 3 times national average, analysis says." They are also co-investigators on the new VPI Center for Youth Equity, a research hub for youth violence prevention. In this article, they point to the structural and systemic roots of violence and the need to work as a community to protect all individuals, especially those that are most vulnerable.
