FRIDAY, June 21, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- For the fourth year in a row, rates of gun injuries stayed above levels seen before the pandemic, a new government report shows. Race played a key role in who saw those higher rates of gun violence in 2023, the researchers from the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted. "Annual rates among Black and Hispanic persons remained elevated through 2023; by 2023 rates in other racial and ethnic groups returned to pre-pandemic levels," the study authors reported Thursday in the CDC's Socioeconomics also mattered. "The most substantial rate increases occurred in more urban counties and counties with greater income inequality, higher unemployment, and those with more severe housing problems," the researchers noted in the report.
The data on gun injuries, which was collected from ambulance calls in 27 states through September 2023, looked to shed more light on the gun injuries that do not result in deaths or hospitalizations. After linking the ambulance data to county-level demographics data, the researchers found rates of firearm injuries "were consistently highest" in counties with severe housing issues, which also saw the biggest increases compared with 2019. By income, rates were also highest in counties with the most income inequality and higher unemployment rates, the report found.
"The unequal distribution of high rates and increases in firearm injury EMS encounters highlight the need for states and communities to develop .
