Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pediatric firearm-relatedinjuries in the USA

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Firearms are the second leading cause of death for those under age 19 in the United States. Themajority of unintentional gun-related deaths occur in the home while parents/guardians are absent, and over1 in 3 children in America live in a household with a gun. Previous research has demonstrated that rearm-related injuries and fatalities are more prevalent for children who live in homes with guns, as well as in stateswith higher rates of gun ownership. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented change in Americansociety, including closures of over 124,000 schools, affecting over 55 million students across all 50 states. Wesought to analyze the impact of pandemic-related public health measures implemented since March 2020 -including school shutdowns and “Stay at Home” orders - on pediatric rearm-related injuries and fatalities.We also investigated if ndings were modulated by state-level differences in legislation around Safe Storage(SS) of rearms. Methods: Firearm-related injury and fatality data for victims aged 0-17 years from January 1,2019 to April 26, 2020 was obtained from the Gun Violence Archive. Information about state adoption of SS laws was obtained from the Giffords Law Center. Difference-in-differences estimates were calculated in Statausing ordinary least squares with heteroskedasticity robust standard errors. Results: Preliminary resultsdemonstrate several changes in pediatric rearm-related injuries and fatalities in the United States sinceMarch 2020. Daily pediatric rearm-related injuries and fatalities appear largely unchanged on weekdays(Monday through Friday) in 2020 relative to 2019. However, daily pediatric rearm-related injuries andfatalities appear to have decreased by 9.27 (p = 0.005) on weekends (Saturday and Sunday) in 2020 comparedto 2019. This decrease in weekend pediatric rearm-related injuries and fatalities appears to be larger instates without Safe Storage laws. Conclusions: These preliminary results suggest that public health measuresadopted in response to COVID-19 are associated with a decrease in pediatric rearm-related injuries andfatalities on weekends. This pattern may be consistent with the likely increased presence of parents/guardiansin the home on weekends when compared with the pre-pandemic era, potentially limiting minors' access torearms. Firearm-related violence may be stable during the pandemic on weekdays because youth are undersimilar levels of supervision whether in school prior to the pandemic or at home with a parent/guardianduring the pandemic. Further investigation is needed to expand upon these results, delineate potential sub-group differences between various types of rearm-related injuries and fatalities (unintentional injuries,homicides, mass/school shootings, or suicides), and follow these trends while pandemic-related policiesremain in place. Our ndings may help inform physician counseling strategies for injury prevention andsuggest future directions for advocacy and research.