Just days after a gunman turned Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School into a frantic crime scene in February 2018, student survivors from the Florida school organized a youth movement for stricter gun laws. With sleeping bags and permission slips, they bussed to the State Capitol, pursued lawmakers, and have taken the world stage with the articulate message that they are fed-up with the inability of adult leaders to protect students in classrooms like theirs. The students’ voices seem to have risen above a decades-long stalemate about gun laws, drawing policymakers away from deadlock and towards dialog. This may be partly due to the emotional response to images of young people speaking out for their safety, but it also reflects the exceptionality of today’s young people as the American generation that is the most racially and ethnically diverse, most technologically interconnected, and (at least for now) least habituated to the standstill in debate around firearms.

Their message is powerful intrinsically, but it is also a powerful demonstration of how youth (which we are defining as school-age children and adolescents) can impact health policy. Researchers seeking to inform policy with their work should take note. Reducing harm from gun violence through research and legal reform are well-supported strategies in public health literature, and one way to move these strategies toward action is to include those primarily impacted by gun violence in research and implementation efforts: youth and members of racial and ethnic minority communities.1 Unfortunately, members from these groups tend to be absent from research and policy conversations.2

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