2020 to 2021 Saw Rise in Firearm-Related Hospitalizations

MONDAY, Feb. 3, 2025 (HealthDay News) — From 2020 to 2021, there was a 34 percent increase in firearm-related hospitalizations, according to a research letter published online Jan. 27 in JAMA Network Open.

Raymond A. Jean, M.D., from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues examined trends in firearm-related hospitalization rates. The analysis included data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project National Inpatient Sample (2015 to 2021).

The researchers identified 159,215 weighted hospitalizations for firearm-related injury during the study period. There was a steady decline in discharges from 2015 to 2019 that was forecasted to continue by the seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average model. From 2020 to 2021, models estimated 39,212 hospitalizations, but the actual observed number was 52,480 (observed-to-expected ratio, 1.34). There were disproportionate increases in hospitalizations among patients younger than 18 years (observed-to-expected ratio, 1.44), Medicaid-enrolled patients (observed-to-expected ratio, 1.46), and Black patients (observed-to-expected ratio, 1.41) compared with historical trends. 

“While attention has been given to the impact of the initial COVID-19 lockdown on admissions for acute medical conditions, the pandemic”s overall effect on trauma-related conditions is much less clear,” the authors write. “Despite these limitations, these results confirm a pervasive and troubling phenomenon and suggest the need for urgent policy efforts to mitigate gun harm.”

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