Black Americans experienced nonfatal firearm injuries 10 times more frequently than white Americans in 2019 and 2020, according to research from the Perelman School of Medicine, published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Researchers found that Black boys and men aged 15 to 34 experienced the highest rate of firearm injuries caused by assault and unintentional injuries.
Racial disparities from fatal firearm injuries are well established, but data is limited in explaining the racial breakdown of nonfatal injuries. In 2019, the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample began tracking patient race and ethnicity for the first time, allowing researchers to evaluate the demographics of firearm injuries that were either unintentional (from an accidental gun discharge or malfunction), from self-harm (attempted suicide), assault (intentional attack by someone else), or legal intervention (from a law enforcement officer or similar).
“There are twice as many nonfatal injuries from firearms as fatal ones, so focusing only on deaths misses a huge part of the impact that firearm injury has on health,” says lead author, Elinore Kaufman, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Trauma Surgery, and director of the Trauma Violence Recovery Program. “We want to reduce the number of total injuries from firearms—both fatal and nonfatal—and in order to design interventions and measure their efficacy, we need the full picture.”
While Black individuals make up only 12.6% of the U.S. population, they experienced 44.5% of total firearm injuries, including deaths, at a rate of 136 injuries for every 100,000 people per year. The group also experienced the highest rate of nonfatal firearm injuries, with 106.7 injuries per 100,000 people per year, 10 times that of white individuals.
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