Her tireless efforts to educate people and increase awareness about guns were honored Oct. 28 in San Diego when she was given the American Public Health Assn.’s first Sidel-Levy Award For Peace, which is awarded to public health professionals who make great contributions toward promoting international peace and stopping war.
“I have a dream that one day we’ll live in a peaceful world,” she said.
Kioumehr-Dadsetan, an Iranian American, was honored that she was able get an award for peace since political leaders often deem Iran as not a peaceful nation, she said.
“This is not true,” she said. “We also believe in peace.”
As an epidemiologist whose focus is in prevention medicine, Kioumehr-Dadsetan said she began to look at violence as a disease.
“More people die from guns than anything else,” she said.
Kioumehr-Dadsetan started researching the effects of guns on society and the number of deaths related to gun violence. She established her nonprofit research center in 1994 with an aim of ending violence among children through education about the danger of guns.
“If you want to do any changes in society, you have to start with children,” she said.
To get the word out about gun violence, she also started the Anti-Violence Campaign and a Peace Day in 1994.
At the Peace Day events, Kioumehr-Dadsetan urged parents and children to turn in their toy guns. The guns were given to artists who made art pieces with the toy firearms, she said.
But stopping gun violence “is not a quick fix,” she said.
Gun-violence awareness must be spread through the country and world, Kioumehr-Dadsetan said. And organizers in Brazil, Canada, South Africa and France have asked Kioumehr-Dadsetan to help them establish their own Peace Day, she said.
