Citation

Frattaroli S, Webster DW, Teret SP. J. Urban Health 2002; 79(1): 49-59.

Affiliation

Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore 21205, USA. Sfrattar@jhsph.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

11937615

Abstract

The public health community has long recognized unintentional gun injuries as a public health issue. In 1998 in the United States, 866 people died from unintentional gunshot wounds, resulting in a crude death rate of 0.32 per 100,000. Unintentional gun deaths have been declining since at least 1920, yet the reasons for this downward trend are not understood. Possible explanations, such as changes in gun ownership and demography, changes in access to guns among population subgroups, safety practices, and artifactual influences are discussed. Intervention strategies for reducing the risk of unintentional gun injury are also discussed.