At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, firearm violence surpassed motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death among US children. A new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) for the first time reveals how this worrying pattern among children varied by age—and how the pandemic-related gun homicide spike is rising faster among kids than adults.
Published in JAMA Pediatrics, the study found that the spike in gun death rates during the first two years of the pandemic disproportionately affected adolescents ages 10-16, as well as adults over 30 years old. These increases lowered the peak risk of being a victim of a fatal shooting from 21 years old to 19 years old.
The study was funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. The senior author is Dr. Jason Goldstick, director of statistics and methods at the University of Michigan Injury Prevention Center, and a research associate professor of emergency medicine and health behavior and health equity at UM.
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