Citation

Lee LK, Chaudhary S, Kemal S, Kiragu A, Sheehan K, Fleegler EW. Lancet Child Adolesc. Health 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S2352-4642(22)00158-4

PMID

35644160

PMCID

PMC9135492

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced health systems worldwide to address the foundational meaning of disease prevention and harm reduction. While global attention has focused on this unprecedented pandemic, in the USA, an accelerating shift over the past decade has occurred in the leading cause of death among children and adolescents aged 0-19 years. According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published in 2022, firearms are the leading cause of death among young people in the USA, due to both a sharp increase in firearm fatalities (83% increase since 2013) and a progressive decrease in motor vehicle fatalities (51% decrease since 2000). The increase in firearm deaths is largely due to increased firearm homicides, as nearly 60% of firearm deaths among young people since 2010 were homicides.

Firearm injuries and deaths in young people show serious racial and ethnic disparities in the USA (appendix). Black, non-Hispanic young people aged 0-19 years had an unprecedented 40% increase in firearm fatalities between 2019 and 2020 (from 11·9 deaths per 100 000 to 16·7 per 100 000). In 2020, Black, non-Hispanic adolescent boys (aged 15-19 years) died by firearm homicide at a rate that was 21 times higher than that for White, non-Hispanic adolescent boys (90·3 per 100 000 vs 4·2 per 100 000). In the past two decades, an estimated 136 292 firearm injuries occurred among Black, non-Hispanic adolescents (194·3 injuries per 100 000) compared with 45 525 injuries in White, non-Hispanic adolescents (18·1 per 100 000). These considerable racial disparities are rooted in poverty and structural and cultural racism, resulting in a victim-blaming and biased perception of firearm-related violence in minoritised populations, which lessens the sense of urgency to reduce this violence. By contrast, classic firearm risk behaviour, namely firearm carriage among young people, differs from these trends, as firearm carriage rates in 2015-19 were highest among White, rural, and higher-income adolescents...

Language: en