Study Shows Alarming Increase in Firearm Deaths in American Children of School Age

The number of firearm deaths among school-aged children is increasing at an alarming rate in the United States, where homicide rates are about 6 to 9 times higher than those in developed countries. This epidemic poses increasingly important clinical, public health and policy issues.

A study conducted by researchers at the Schmitt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University explored the temporal trends in firearm death among US schoolchildren by age and race between 1999 and 2017. Their report quantifies these recent outbreaks in Canada. 39, using data from the Multiple Cause of Deaths of the United States National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

The results of the study, recently published in the American Journal of Medicine, show that from 1999 to 2017, 38,942 firearm deaths occurred among 5 to 18 year olds. Of these, there were 6,464 deaths of children aged 5 to 14 years (340 deaths per year on average) and 32,478 deaths of children aged 15 to 18 years (2,050 deaths per year). on average).

"In 2017, 144 police officers died in the line of duty and about 1,000 servicemen around the world died, while 2,462 school-age children were killed by a firearm." said Charles H. Hennekens. MD, lead author, first professor Sir Richard Doll and senior academic advisor at the FAU Schmidt College of Medicine.

Statistically significant increases in the number of firearm deaths began in 2009, with a first epidemic among 5-14 years, followed by a second epidemic started in 2014 among 15-18 year olds. Each of these outbreaks continued until 2017, the most recent year for which US mortality data are currently available. The percentages of all firearm deaths were 5.6 years between 5 and 14 years and 19.9 years between 15 and 18 years.

Black children aged 5 to 14 experienced a statistically significant increase in the number of firearm-related deaths from 2013. Between 2013 and 2017, racial inequalities between firearm deaths between blacks and whites significantly increased in the 5 to 14 years, so 18 years.

The causes of death in children of school age were 61% due to badault; 32% are due to suicide; 5 per cent accidental; and 2% undetermined. Blacks accounted for 41% of all deaths and 86% of all deaths involved boys.

Among the 5 to 14 year olds, the cause of death was clbadified as an accident, 12.8% (830 deaths); suicide, 29.6% (1,912 deaths); aggression, 54.8% (3,545 deaths) and indeterminate, 2.7% (177 deaths). Among the 15-18 year olds, the cause of death was clbadified as an accident, 3.5% (1,121 deaths); suicide, 32.9% (10,688 deaths); aggression, 62.3% (20,247 deaths) and undetermined, 1,3% (422 deaths). There was no death qualified as terrorism.

Hennekens and co-authors, Alexandra Rubenstein, second year pre-medical student at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine; Sarah K. Wood, M.D., Senior Associate Dean of Medical Education at the FAU's Schmidt College of Medicine; and Robert S. Levine, MD, affiliated professor at the FAU's Schmidt College of Medicine and a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, believe that fighting the firearm-related death toll among schoolchildren Americans without resorting to firearms is badogous to fighting the epidemic of lung cancer mortality due to cigarette without attacking the cigarette.

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