Philip Alpers

Philip Alpers is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Sydney School of Public Health within the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney. Since 1992, he has compared armed violence, firearm injury prevention, and gun law across jurisdictions worldwide. He is the founding director of GunPolicy.org, a global project of the University of Sydney School of Public Health that provides data and analysis on firearms ownership, laws, production, trade, and violence. Alpers has authored and co-authored detailed profiles for more than 200 countries and territories, making it an essential resource for researchers, policymakers, and public health experts. Additionally, he co-founded the Centre for Armed Violence Reduction and designed ArmsTracker, a weapon and ammunition tracking system adopted or under evaluation by over 30 state security forces globally. His research interests include public health aspects of firearm injury prevention, armed violence, and gun regulation.

Key publications by Alpers include the highly influential "Australia’s 1996 Gun Law Reforms: Faster falls in firearm deaths, firearm suicides, and a decade without mass shootings" (Injury Prevention, 2006, over 900 citations), "Association Between Gun Law Reforms and Intentional Firearm Deaths in Australia, 1979–2013" (JAMA, 2016), "Small Arms in the Pacific" (Small Arms Survey, 2003), "Mass Homicide: The Civil Massacre" (Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 2000), and "Australia—Gun Facts, Figures and the Law" (Sydney School of Public Health, 2016). More recent work encompasses "Gun violence in Australia, 2002–2016: a cohort study" (Medical Journal of Australia, 2021). Alpers' contributions have shaped evidence-based discussions on firearm policy and injury prevention internationally, with his data and analyses referenced in academic literature, policy reports, and media worldwide.

Professional Email: philip.alpers@sydney.edu.au