Firearm injury prevention in the emergency department

Firearm injury is a significant public health problem in the United States. Almost 40,000 people died and 134,000 were injured in the United States in 2017. Two-thirds of U.S. firearm deaths in 2017 were suicides, just as in every year in the last decade. Although the majority of firearm deaths are White men, the epidemic disproportionately affects young (age 15-34) minority men, for whom firearm injury is the leading cause of death. Due to limitations in federal funding for firearm injury prevention research, the evidence-base is limited. What evidence does exist points clearly to the need for ED-based awareness of and intervention to reduce common patterns of firearm injury, such as suicide, community violence, and domestic violence. In this chapter, we present an overview of key activities that emergency providers can take to address this issue.