INDIANA – A stark new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals the alarming frequency of firearm injuries treated in emergency departments across the United States. Analyzing over 93,000 emergency department visits for firearm-related injuries between 2018 and 2023 across nine states and Washington, D.C., researchers found that, on average, a firearm injury is treated in a US emergency department every 30 minutes.
The CDC’s findings also indicated a pattern in the timing of these incidents, with a higher number of firearm injury cases occurring at night, on weekends, and during certain holidays such as Independence Day and New Year’s Eve.
Firearm injuries are the leading cause of death among children and teens in the US. Emergency medical service encounters for firearm injury spiked in 2021 and remain higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Firearm suicides have continued to rise and are now higher than at any other point in the past 50 years.
The study analyzed over 93,000 emergency department visits for firearm injuries through data from the CDC’s Firearm Injury Surveillance Through Emergency Rooms (FASTER), which collects real-time data from select jurisdictions. Data from 2018 through 2023 in Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and DC included.
The analysis specifically showed that most of the patients with gunshot wounds arrived at the emergency department between 2:30 and 3 a.m., and the slowest times were between 10 and 10:30 a.m. The peaks were highest overnight from Friday into Saturday and Saturday into Sunday. The case rates were highest in July and lowest in February.
“Knowing when firearm injury emergency department visits are higher can help inform decisions about physician staffing, resource allocation, and trauma preparedness to reduce delays in care and use resources most effectively,” the CDC stated in an email. This information could be crucial for hospitals and healthcare systems in preparing for and responding to surges in firearm injury cases.
But cuts from the US Department of Health and Human Services and proposed changes to the federal budget could threaten research that reveals these kinds of firearm injury patterns. Experts say it would be nearly impossible to replicate the scale and scope of the timely firearm research the federal government can conduct.
The recent study, which was published last week in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, says that firearm injury visits are not evenly distributed. There were more firearm injury presentations at night, on the weekends, and on some holidays, like Independence Day and New Year’s Eve.
The report underscores the significant public health crisis posed by firearm violence in the US. While firearm injuries are now the leading cause of death among children and teenagers in the nation, the future of research into this critical issue faces uncertainty. Proposed massive budget cuts and recent layoffs at federal health agencies threaten to jeopardize ongoing and future studies aimed at understanding and preventing firearm-related harm.
