Firearm Access and Risk

“Extreme risk protection orders are often talked about as a way to prevent suicide, but our findings show they may do more than that. People subject to these orders in California were less likely to be arrested for violence or other crimes while the orders were in effect and even after they ended, suggesting ERPOs have a meaningful role to play in preventing interpersonal violence.”

-Veronica Pear, assistant professor and lead author

Optimism bias is common across health risk assessments, including firearm injury risk, and can have behavioral consequences.

Identifying community characteristics associated with firearm assault could facilitate prevention. We investigated the effect of community firearm dealer and alcohol outlet densities on individual risk of firearm assault injury.

Suicide is a pressing public health problem, and firearm owners are at especially elevated risk. Certain health conditions are markers of suicide risk, but more research is needed on clinical risk markers for suicide among firearm owners specifically. Our goal was to examine associations of emergency department and inpatient hospital visits for behavioral and physical health conditions with firearm suicide among handgun purchasers.

Firearm availability has been linked to firearm self-harm, but the joint relationship with alcohol availability, while supported by theory, has not been examined. This study sought to quantify the separate and joint relations of community firearm and alcohol availability with individual-level risk of (fatal and nonfatal) firearm self-harm.

Can handgun purchasing records, coupled with machine learning techniques, be used to forecast firearm suicide risk?