From the Division of Trauma, Critical Care, Emergency Surgery, and Burns, Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (Joseph, Hosseinpour, Anand, Colosimo, Nelson, Stewart, Spencer, Zhang, Magnotti).
Division of Acute Care Surgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD (Sakran).
J Am Coll Surg. 2024 Apr 1;238(4):671-678. doi: 10.1097/XCS.0000000000000955. Epub 2024 Mar 15.
Firearm violence and school shootings remain a significant public health problem. This study aimed to examine how publicly available data from all 50 states might improve our understanding of the situation, firearm type, and demographics surrounding school shootings.
School shootings occurring in the US for 53 years ending in May 2022 were analyzed, using primary data files that were obtained from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security. Data analyzed included situation, injury, firearm type, and demographics of victims and shooters. We compared the ratio of fatalities per wounded after stratifying by type of weapon. Rates (among children) of school shooting victims, wounded, and fatalities per 1 million population were stratified by year and compared over time.
A total of 2,056 school shooting incidents involving 3,083 victims were analyzed: 2,033 children, 5 to 17 years, and 1,050 adults, 18 to 74 years. Most victims (77%) and shooters (96%) were male individuals with a mean age of 18 and 19 years, respectively. Of the weapons identified, handguns, rifles, and shotguns accounted for 84%, 7%, and 4%, respectively. Rifles had a higher fatality-to-wounded ratio (0.45) compared with shooters using multiple weapons (0.41), handguns (0.35), and shotguns (0.30). Linear regression analysis identified a significant increase in the rate of school shooting victims (β = 0.02, p = 0.0003), wounded (β = 0.01, p = 0.026), and fatalities (β = 0.01, p = 0.0003) among children over time.
Despite heightened public awareness, the incidence of school shooting victims, wounded, and fatalities among children has steadily and significantly increased over the past 53 years. Understanding the epidemic represents the first step in preventing continued firearm violence in our schools.
枪支暴力和校园枪击事件仍是一个严重的公共卫生问题。本研究旨在探讨如何利用全美 50 个州公开可用的数据来更好地了解校园枪击事件的情况、枪支类型以及与受害者和枪手相关的人口统计学特征。
分析了截至 2022 年 5 月在美国发生的 53 年来的校园枪击事件，使用的是从国土安全防御与安全中心获取的原始数据文件。分析的数据包括情况、伤害、枪支类型以及受害者和枪手的人口统计学特征。我们通过分层比较不同武器类型的每例受伤者的死亡率来进行比较。根据年份对每百万人口中校园枪击事件受害者、受伤者和死亡人数进行分层，并随时间进行比较。
共分析了 2056 起涉及 3083 名受害者的校园枪击事件：2033 名儿童（5-17 岁）和 1050 名成年人（18-74 岁）。大多数受害者（77%）和枪手（96%）为男性，平均年龄分别为 18 岁和 19 岁。确定的武器中，手枪、步枪和猎枪分别占 84%、7%和 4%。与使用多种武器（0.41）、手枪（0.35）和猎枪（0.30）的枪手相比，步枪的致死率与受伤率比值更高（0.45）。线性回归分析显示，儿童的校园枪击事件受害者（β=0.02，p=0.0003）、受伤者（β=0.01，p=0.026）和死亡者（β=0.01，p=0.0003）的发生率随着时间的推移而显著增加。
尽管公众意识提高，但过去 53 年来，儿童校园枪击事件受害者、受伤者和死亡者的发生率一直在稳步显著增加。了解这一疫情是预防我们学校持续发生枪支暴力的第一步。
