Citation

Naghavi M, Marczak LB, Kutz M, Shackelford KA, Arora M, Miller-Petrie M, Aichour MTE, Akseer N, Al-Raddadi RM, Alam K, Alghnam SA, Antonio CAT, Aremu O, Arora A, Asadi-Lari M, Assadi R, Atey TM, Avila-Burgos L, Awasthi A, Ayala Quintanilla BP, Barker-Collo SL, Bärnighausen TW, Bazargan-Hejazi S, Behzadifar M, Behzadifar M, Bennett JR, Bhalla A, Bhutta ZA, Bilal AI, Borges GLG, Borschmann R, Brazinova A, Campuzano Rincon JC, Carvalho F, Castañeda-Orjuela CA, Dandona L, Dandona R, Dargan PI, De Leo D, Dharmaratne SD, Ding EL, Phuc Do H, Doku DT, Doyle KE, Driscoll TR, Edessa D, El-Khatib Z, Endries AY, Esteghamati A, Faro A, Farzadfar F, Feigin VL, Fischer F, Foreman KJ, Franklin RC, Fullman N, Futran ND, Gebrehiwot TT, Gutiérrez RA, Hafezi-Nejad N, Haghparast-Bidgoli H, Hailu GB, Haro JM, Hassen HY, Hawley C, Hendrie D, Hijar M, Hu G, Ilesanmi OS, Jakovljevic M, James SL, Jayaraman S, Jonas JB, Kahsay A, Kasaeian A, Keiyoro PN, Khader Y, Khalil IA, Khang YH, Khubchandani J, Ahmad Kiadaliri A, Kieling C, Kim YJ, Kosen S, Krohn KJ, Kumar GA, Lami FH, Lansingh VC, Larson HJ, Linn S, Lunevicius R, Magdy Abd El Razek H, Magdy Abd El Razek M, Malekzadeh R, Carvalho Malta D, Mason-Jones AJ, Matzopoulos R, Memiah PTN, Mendoza W, Meretoja TJ, Mezgebe HB, Miller TR, Mohammed S, Moradi-Lakeh M, Mori R, Nand D, Tat Nguyen C, Le Nguyen Q, Ningrum DNA, Akpojene Ogbo F, Olagunju AT, Patton GC, Phillips MR, Polinder S, Pourmalek F, Qorbani M, Rahimi-Movaghar A, Rahimi-Movaghar V, Rahman M, Rai RK, Ranabhat CL, Rawaf DL, Rawaf S, Rowhani-Rahbar A, Safdarian M, Safiri S, Sagar R, Salama JS, Sanabria J, Santric Milicevic MM, Sarmiento-Suárez R, Sartorius B, Satpathy M, Schwebel DC, Seedat S, Sepanlou SG, Shaikh MA, Sharew NT, Shiue I, Singh JA, Sisay M, Skirbekk V, Soares Filho AM, Stein DJ, Stokes MA, Sufiyan MB, Swaroop M, Sykes BL, Tabarés-Seisdedos R, Tadese F, Tran BX, Thanh Tran T, Ukwaja KN, Vasankari TJ, Vlassov V, Werdecker A, Ye P, Yip P, Yonemoto N, Younis MZ, Zaidi Z, El Sayed Zaki M, Hay SI, Lim SS, Lopez AD, Mokdad AH, Vos T, Murray CJL. J. Am. Med. Assoc. JAMA 2018; 320(8): 792-814.

Affiliation

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, American Medical Association)

DOI

10.1001/jama.2018.10060

PMID

30167700

Abstract

IMPORTANCE: Understanding global variation in firearm mortality rates could guide prevention policies and interventions.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate mortality due to firearm injury deaths from 1990 to 2016 in 195 countries and territories.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This study used deidentified aggregated data including 13 812 location-years of vital registration data to generate estimates of levels and rates of death by age-sex-year-location. The proportion of suicides in which a firearm was the lethal means was combined with an estimate of per capita gun ownership in a revised proxy measure used to evaluate the relationship between availability or access to firearms and firearm injury deaths.

EXPOSURES: Firearm ownership and access.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Cause-specific deaths by age, sex, location, and year.

RESULTS: Worldwide, it was estimated that 251 000 (95% uncertainty interval [UI], 195 000-276 000) people died from firearm injuries in 2016, with 6 countries (Brazil, United States, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Guatemala) accounting for 50.5% (95% UI, 42.2%-54.8%) of those deaths. In 1990, there were an estimated 209 000 (95% UI, 172 000 to 235 000) deaths from firearm injuries. Globally, the majority of firearm injury deaths in 2016 were homicides (64.0% [95% UI, 54.2%-68.0%]; absolute value, 161 000 deaths [95% UI, 107 000-182 000]); additionally, 27% were firearm suicide deaths (67 500 [95% UI, 55 400-84 100]) and 9% were unintentional firearm deaths (23 000 [95% UI, 18 200-24 800]). From 1990 to 2016, there was no significant decrease in the estimated global age-standardized firearm homicide rate (-0.2% [95% UI, -0.8% to 0.2%]). Firearm suicide rates decreased globally at an annualized rate of 1.6% (95% UI, 1.1-2.0), but in 124 of 195 countries and territories included in this study, these levels were either constant or significant increases were estimated. There was an annualized decrease of 0.9% (95% UI, 0.5%-1.3%) in the global rate of age-standardized firearm deaths from 1990 to 2016. Aggregate firearm injury deaths in 2016 were highest among persons aged 20 to 24 years (for men, an estimated 34 700 deaths [95% UI, 24 900-39 700] and for women, an estimated 3580 deaths [95% UI, 2810-4210]). Estimates of the number of firearms by country were associated with higher rates of firearm suicide (P < .001; R2 = 0.21) and homicide (P < .001; R2 = 0.35).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: This study estimated between 195 000 and 276 000 firearm injury deaths globally in 2016, the majority of which were firearm homicides. Despite an overall decrease in rates of firearm injury death since 1990, there was variation among countries and across demographic subgroups.

Language: en