.png)
Almost one child or teen an hour is injured by a firearm seriously enough to require hospitalization, a new analysis finds. Six percent of the 7,391 hospitalizations analyzed in 2009 resulted in a death, a study released this week in February’s Pediatrics magazine said.
The damage caused by gun-related injuries rarely gets the same attention as fatalities, “but that every day, 20 of our children are hospitalized for firearms injury, often suffering severe and costly injuries, clearly shows that this is a national public health problem,” said Robert Sege, director of the Division of Family and Child Advocacy at Boston Medical Center and a co-author of the study.
Despite declining rates over the last decade, firearms injuries remain the second leading cause of death, behind motor-vehicle crashes, for teens ages 15 to 19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Children who survive firearms injuries often require extensive follow-up treatment, including rehabilitation, home health care, hospital readmission from delayed effects of the injury, and mental health or social services, Sege says.
Although a number of studies have used vital statistics data to examine pediatric fatalities related to firearms, this is the first to highlight the burden of non-fatal injuries using hospitalization data, he said.
Researchers analyzed a nationally representative sample of discharge data collected on children and adolescents (up to age 20) in 2009. The data, released in 2011, are the most recent available, Sege said.
The study detailed a significant racial gap: Black children and adolescents comprised 47 percent of all hospitalizations, 54 percent of hospitalizations resulting from assaults, 36 percent from unintentional injuries and 54 percent from undetermined causes.
Sege says the data did not allow researchers to “separate the effects of poverty from the effects of race.”.
© 2014 USA TODAY. All rights reserved.
