Citation

Hyder AA, Werbick M, Scannelli L, Paichadze N. Glob. Health Sci. Pract. 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Johns Hopkins University Press and U.S. Agency for International Development)

DOI

10.9745/GHSP-D-20-00628

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

As a global public health community, we are constantly confronting new attacks on our health and safety. Public health officials have been forced to reassess how to address, research, and fight threats to our health in the face of a changing environment. One of these persisting threats is firearm violence. Firearms contribute to more than 250,000 recorded deaths each year worldwide and 230 per 100,000 years of life lost; these numbers suffer from potentially serious underreporting.1 Unfortunately, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) suffer a disproportionate burden of firearm violence. Research has shown that 83% of all violence-related deaths occur in LMICs.2 Moreover, in the United States, 90% of the burden of firearm violence falls on civilian populations, as compared to the 10% concentrated in armed conflict situations, and the societal costs of firearm violence have reached more than $150 billion annually.1 As a private industry, gun producers and distributors play a major role in the growing availability of guns and, in turn, the severity of firearm violence in the U.S. and globally. We discuss some of these problems here and issue a call to action for the public health, medical, and social communities.

Key Messages

Firearms have a large impact on the health of individuals and societies globally, with a disproportionate burden on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

The firearms industry uses strategies to promote the sale and use of their products that are detrimental to health and therefore should be viewed through a commercial determinants of health lens.

Coupled with the heightened risks during the COVID-19 pandemic, the threat to health posed by the firearms industry necessitates public health research, intervention, and collaboration.

Public health practitioners and policy makers should increase efforts to reduce the burden of firearm violence.

Public health researchers should use a commercial determinants of health lens when investigating health risks caused by firearms.

When discussing solutions to firearm violence, public health practitioners and policy makers should include perspectives from LMICs and vulnerable groups.

Language: en