Athey Alison, Nestadt Paul S, Rogers Megan L, Dunton Zachary, McCourt Alexander, Wilcox Holly C
RAND Corporation, Arlington, Virginia; The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland.
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2025 Aug;64(8):897-905. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2024.11.009. Epub 2024 Nov 19.
Rates of youth firearm injury deaths are precipitously increasing, in part because of increases in youth firearm suicides. State policies may reduce youth suicide and other firearm death rates by limiting access to firearms. This study evaluated the impact of child access prevention (CAP) laws on rates of youth firearm suicide mortality. We evaluated whether CAP law-associated changes in youth firearm suicide rates reflected shifts to nonfirearm suicide methods or systematic changes in the classification of suicide deaths.
Nationally representative mortality data from 1990 through 2020 were disaggregated by state and year. CAP laws fall into 2 major categories: negligent storage of firearms policies that regulate how firearms are stored in households with children and reckless provision of a firearm to a minor policies that impose liability on firearm owners who provide youth with firearms that are used to harm others. Firearm suicide, nonfirearm suicide, firearm homicide, and firearm unintentional injury death rates among youth ages 1 to 17 were the main outcomes.
Growth curve models revealed that CAP firearm storage laws were associated with significant reductions in youth firearm suicide mortality, with small-to-medium effects for their overall presence and medium-to-large effects for specific aspects of storage requirements. There was no evidence that these findings were the result of shifts in youth suicide methods or manner of death classifications. CAP firearm storage laws are a promising tool for reducing overall rates of youth suicide and youth firearm injury deaths.
CAP firearm storage policies appear to effectively reduce firearm suicide mortality as well as firearm-related unintentional injuries and homicide in youth.
This nationally representative study used more than 30 years of mortality data maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to evaluate the association between a firearm storage policy and youth suicide mortality. The study showed that child access prevention policies that govern the safe storage of firearms in homes with children were associated with lower rates of youth suicide mortality. Laws that require families to store firearms unloaded and secured in a locking device appear to effectively prevent youth suicide deaths and firearm-related youth deaths by accident and homicide. Results highlight the importance of policy level interventions in improving youth mental health outcomes.
青少年枪支伤害死亡发生率急剧上升，部分原因是青少年枪支自杀事件增多。州政策可通过限制枪支获取来降低青少年自杀率和其他枪支死亡率。本研究评估了儿童防接触（CAP）法律对青少年枪支自杀死亡率的影响。我们评估了与CAP法律相关的青少年枪支自杀率变化是否反映了向非枪支自杀方式的转变或自杀死亡分类的系统性变化。
1990年至2020年具有全国代表性的死亡率数据按州和年份进行了分类。CAP法律分为两大类：枪支疏忽存储政策，规定了在有儿童的家庭中枪支的存储方式；以及向未成年人鲁莽提供枪支政策，对向青少年提供用于伤害他人的枪支的枪支所有者施加责任。1至17岁青少年的枪支自杀率、非枪支自杀率、枪支凶杀率和枪支意外伤害死亡率是主要结果。
增长曲线模型显示，CAP枪支存储法律与青少年枪支自杀死亡率的显著降低相关，其总体存在有小到中等的影响，存储要求的特定方面有中等到较大的影响。没有证据表明这些发现是青少年自杀方式或死亡分类方式转变的结果。CAP枪支存储法律是降低青少年自杀率和青少年枪支伤害死亡率总体水平的一个有前景的工具。
CAP枪支存储政策似乎能有效降低青少年的枪支自杀死亡率以及与枪支相关的意外伤害和凶杀率。
这项具有全国代表性的研究使用了疾病控制与预防中心保存的30多年死亡率数据，以评估一项枪支存储政策与青少年自杀死亡率之间的关联。研究表明，管理有儿童家庭中枪支安全存储的儿童防接触政策与较低的青少年自杀死亡率相关。要求家庭将枪支卸载并锁在锁定装置中的法律似乎能有效预防青少年自杀死亡以及因意外和凶杀导致的与枪支相关的青少年死亡。结果凸显了政策层面干预在改善青少年心理健康结果方面的重要性。
