Firearm
Injuries Becoming More Severe
American Public Health
Association (APHA)
New research presented
at APHA's 2017 Annual Meeting and Expo revealed that the severity of firearm
injuries has increased over the past 20 years, among those hospitalized for
their injuries.
Researchers from
Boston University School of Medicine noted that their findings have broad
implications for public health beyond increased suffering on the individual
level.
The study used
hospitalization data from 44 states between 1993 and 2013 to measure trends in
firearm injury.
Data showed firearm
injury severity increased each year, and was driven by a large increase in
serious open fractures and a decline in minor injuries.
Researchers found that
young adults showed a particularly large increase in serious open injuries.
They also saw a large
decline in minor firearm injuries in this age group. The study concluded that
young adults, in particular, bear a greater burden of increasingly severe
gunshot wounds.
Data from this study
also showed that this trend is true for both injuries from firearm assault and
from unintentional injury.
Both categories of firearm injury showed a decreasing number of minor injuries and an increasing number of serious open fractures.
The study also showed
that injuries from suicide attempts with a firearm increased in severity.
"The combination
of increasing severity of gun injuries and better medical care that results in
more gun injury survivors indicates a growing burden on the health care system.
The acute medical care that allows people with gun injuries to survive does not
mean that they have completely recovered," said Yi Zuo, MPH, study author
and statistical data analyst at the Center for Clinical Translational
Epidemiology and Comparative Effectiveness Research at Boston University School
of Medicine.
"The majority of
patients with gun injuries will live compromised lives with repeated emergency
and hospitalization visits, psychological problems and social challenges.
Simply put, our study demonstrates not only the additional public health burden
due to non-fatal gun injuries, but also the direct burden of continued and
multiple challenges to the individual."
