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Citation
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Manley NR, Fischer PE, Sharpe JP, Stranch EW, Fabian TC, Croce MA, Magnotti LJ. J. Am. Coll. Surg. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub. |
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Abstract
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INTRODUCTION: Gun violence remains a significant public health problem that is both understudied and underfunded, plagued by inadequate or inaccessible data sources. Over the years, numerous trauma centers have attempted to utilize local registries to study single institutional trends, however, this approach limits generalizability to our national epidemic. In fact, even easily accessible, health-centered data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, because they are limited to only those enrolled states, lack national relevance. Thus, we sought to examine how publicly available, law enforcement data from all 50 states might complement our understanding of circumstances and demographics surrounding national firearm deaths and help forge the first step in partnering law enforcement with trauma centers.
METHODS: All homicides occurring in the United States over a 37-year period ending in 2016 were analyzed. Primary data files were obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and comprised the database. Data analyzed included homicide type, situation, circumstance, firearm type and demographics of victims and offenders. The proportion of firearm-related homicides was stratified by year and compared over time using simple linear regression.
RESULTS: 485,288 incidents of firearm homicide were analyzed (64% of 752,935 total homicides). Most victims were male (85%), black (53%) and had a mean age of 33; offenders were predominantly male (67%), black (39%) with a mean age of 30. 54% of all homicides involved a single victim and single offender, followed by a single victim and unknown offender(s) (31%); 4% of firearm homicides had multiple victims. Overall, handguns, shotguns and rifles accounted for 76%, 7% and 5% of all firearm homicides, respectively; 11% had no firearm type listed and < 1% were other gun/unknown. Linear regression analysis identified a significant increase in the proportion of firearm-related homicides from 61% in 1980 to 71% in 2016 (β = 0.25, p < 0.0001).
CONCLUSIONS: Gun violence represents an ongoing public health concern with the proportion of firearm homicides steadily and significantly increasing over the past 37 years. FBI homicide data can serve to supplement trauma registry data by helping to define gun violence patterns. However, stronger partnerships between local law enforcement agencies and trauma centers are necessary to (1) better characterize firearm type and resultant injury patterns, (2) direct prevention efforts and firearm policy and (3) reduce gun-related deaths.
Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc.
Language: en |