Salhi Carmel, Azrael Deborah, Miller Matthew
Department of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Inj Prev. 2020 Jul 14. doi: 10.1136/injuryprev-2019-043624.
Research on gun owners' risk-related beliefs has focused on how gun owners answer discrete questions about firearm risk. The current study is the first to use latent class analysis (LCA) to: (A) identify groups of gun owners who share patterns of beliefs about firearm-related risk and (B) examine whether class membership predicts household firearm storage.
We conducted LCA using the 2019 National Firearms Survey, a nationally representative survey of US adult gun-owners (n=2950). The LCA assigned gun owners to classes based on responses to four questions about firearm-related risk. Identified classes were included in logistic regression models predicting firearm storage, along with characteristics linked to storage in past research.
Three classes emerged: (1) owners who believe that guns unconditionally make the home safer and should generally be readily accessible (47%); (2) owners who believe that whether guns make homes safer or less safe depends on context (34%); (3) owners who believe that guns do not pose a risk if stored safely (19%). In adjusted models, compared with owners in class 1, those in classes 2 and 3 were less likely to store guns loaded and unlocked (class 2: OR 0.30, 95% CI 0.23 to 0.39; class 3: OR 0.23, 95% CI 0.16 to 0.32).
Our LCA is a first step towards better understanding variation in patterns of beliefs among gun owners regarding the risks and benefits of firearms. Our results suggest that messaging aimed at promoting safer firearms storage might benefit from the empirically derived typologies we identify.
关于枪支拥有者与风险相关信念的研究主要集中在枪支拥有者如何回答有关枪支风险的离散问题上。当前的研究首次使用潜在类别分析（LCA）来：（A）识别具有关于枪支相关风险的共同信念模式的枪支拥有者群体，以及（B）检验类别归属是否能预测家庭枪支储存情况。
我们使用2019年全国枪支调查进行潜在类别分析，这是一项对美国成年枪支拥有者具有全国代表性的调查（n = 2950）。潜在类别分析根据对四个关于枪支相关风险问题的回答将枪支拥有者分类。识别出的类别被纳入预测枪支储存情况的逻辑回归模型中，同时纳入过去研究中与储存相关的特征。
出现了三个类别：（1）认为枪支无条件地使家庭更安全且通常应易于获取的拥有者（47%）；（2）认为枪支使家庭更安全还是更不安全取决于具体情况的拥有者（34%）；（3）认为如果安全储存枪支就不会构成风险的拥有者（19%）。在调整后的模型中，与第1类拥有者相比，第2类和第3类拥有者将枪支上膛且不锁存的可能性较小（第2类：优势比0.30，95%置信区间0.23至0.39；第3类：优势比0.23，95%置信区间0.16至0.32）。
我们的潜在类别分析是朝着更好地理解枪支拥有者关于枪支风险和益处的信念模式差异迈出的第一步。我们的结果表明，旨在促进更安全枪支储存的信息传递可能会受益于我们识别出的基于实证的类型学。
