• Posted February 4, 2025

Firearms Injuries Shot Up Following Pandemic, Study Says

Hospitalizations for firearm injuries sharply increased in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic after years of steady decline, a new study says.

Overall, 34% more people landed in the hospital for a gunshot injury in 2020 and 2021 than would have been predicted based on pre-pandemic trends, researchers reported Jan. 27 in JAMA Network Open.

Firearms injuries increased the most among Black people, children younger than 18 and people covered by Medicaid, a government insurance program for people with low incomes or some disabilities, results show.

“Taken together, our findings raise new concerns about the sustained increase in firearm-related injury, and in particular the disproportionate increase in younger, low-income and Black individuals,” lead researcher Dr. Raymond Jean, a trauma surgeon at the University of Michigan, said in a news release.

For the study, researchers analyzed national hospitalization data kept by the federal government, using it to create a computer model based on firearms injuries that occurred between 2015 and 2019.

During that time, firearm injuries were trending steadily downward, researchers found.

They then used that model to predict expected gun-related hospitalizations for 2020 and 2021, and compare that prediction against what actually happened.

They found that firearms injuries were higher than expected among:

• People under 18, by 44%.

• Medicaid enrollees, by 46%.

• Black people, by 41%.

By the summer of 2020, firearm-related hospitalizations had increased to levels above the highest peak of the previous five years, researchers noted.

The actual observed number of firearms injuries was 52,480 in 2020 and 2021, while the model had projected 39,212 injuries for that same period based on 2015-2019 trends.

And the actual number of firearms injuries is likely even higher than recorded here, researchers added.

For example, the numbers don’t include data on people who died from a gun injury before reaching a hospital, people treated at an ER without being admitted or those who didn’t seek care for their injury.

More research is needed to figure out why firearms injuries have increased, and what should be done to prevent them, Jean said.

“I have seen firsthand what bullets can do to the human body, and worked to save the lives of those who have survived long enough to reach the operating room,” he added.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about firearm injury and death.

SOURCE: University of Michigan, news release, Jan. 24, 2025