Firearms send more than 8,000 US children every year to emergencies, according to an analysis

Gun injuries, including many victims of assault, sent 75,000 American children and adolescents to emergency rooms over a nine-year period, costing nearly $ 3 billion, a study found unprecedented.

The researchers described this study as the first nationally representative study of emergency room visits for US children. They found that over one third of the injured children had been hospitalized and 6% had died. Injuries declined during most of the 2006-2014 study, but there has been a recovery in the past year.

The researchers found that 11 out of every 100,000 children and teens treated in US emergency rooms had injuries caused by a firearm. This represents approximately 8,300 children each year.

The scope of the problem is broader, however; the study does not include children killed or injured by shots who have never been to the hospital, nor does it take into account the costs of patients injured by gunshots after their return to hospital. the House.

"I do not know what else we need to see in the world so we can come together and solve this problem," said Dr. Faiz Gani, lead author and researcher at Johns University School of Medicine. Hopkins.

The study consists of an analysis of estimates of emergency department visits in a national database created by the US Government's Agency for Health Research and Quality.

Researchers focused on victims under the age of 18; the average age was about 15 years old.

Nearly half of all gunshot wounds were assault-related, about 40% were unintentional and 2% were suicides. There were five times more emergency room visits for boys than for girls.

Pediatric emergency visits for firearm injuries increased from a rate of 15 per 100,000 in 2006 to approximately 7 per 100,000 in 2013, and reached 10 per 100,000 in 2014, according to the most recent data. recent.

University funding paid for the analysis, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.

The findings point to the fact that gun violence involving children exceeds the mass shots that attract the most attention, said Dr. Robert Sege, co-author of the American Academy of Pediatrics' bullet wounds policy.

"It is extremely sad because these children grow up in fear and their ability to feel safe and comfortable at home or at school is affected. Huge workout on child development, "said Sege, a professor of medicine at Tufts University. involved in research.

Pressure from the gun lobby limited US government funding for gun injury and death research, which led to major gaps in understanding the magnitude of the problem, said Dr. Denise Dowd, Emergency Physician at Children's Hospital & Mercy of Kansas City.

"It is really important that we have an idea of ​​the magnitude of the lives lost and the wounded and the money we spend … so that we can make it a priority for health."

But she said that much more needs to be known for prevention.

"We need national surveillance systems, as we do for motor vehicle deaths, to track these injuries and understand the circumstances," she said.

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Follow AP medical writer Lindsey Tanner on @LindseyTanner. His work can be found here.

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