DOI: 10.3886/icpsr39088.v1
title: Racial and Ethnic Differences In Non-Fatal Firearm Injuries, United States, 1993-2017
title: Version 1

description: Although there has been much national discussion, both in scientific literature and popular press, and a growing scientific literature about firearm deaths, much less attention has been paid to non-fatal firearm injury that constitutes 70 percent of the victims of firearm violence. While rates of national fatal firearm mortality rates have stayed more or less stable in the U.S. since the turn of the twenty-first century, the rates of non-fatal firearm injury have, however, increased, driving the epidemic of firearm violence. Rates of non-fatal firearm injuries are inconsistent across the country, with substantial spatial heterogeneity changing over time.
The goal of this project was to understand the drivers of non-fatal firearm injury in order to guide efforts that may reduce related injuries. This study included four aims of analysis:

Document the state-specific (spatial) differences and the changes across time (temporal) of non-fatal firearm injury among all, by racial-ethnic groups and intents of injury.
Assess the state-level factors that influence these changes such as state-specific firearm laws and social characteristics (e.g., minority proportion, rates of unemployment, income inequality, suicide, divorce, firearm ownership, alcohol consumption, drug use, and non-firearm homicide).
Determine the individual socio-demographic and clinical factors that drive both spatial and time trends.
Determine if individual factors modify the spatio-temporal patterns of non-fatal firearm injury, and whether this explains racial-ethnic and intent differences.
The resulting datasets are at state-level analysis.
description: The purpose of this study was to understand the drivers of non-fatal firearm injury in order to guide efforts that may reduce related injuries.
description: Data were initially collected at both state and individual-level from multiple sources before aggregating.
<b>State-level Data Source(s):</b>

Firearm laws information was extracted from the State Firearm Law Database (https://www.statefirearmlaws.com) and Trace The Guns (https://www.tracetheguns.org) (2000-2017).
Minority proportion information was extracted from Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS).
Unemployment rate information was extracted from US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Income inequality (Gini index) was extracted from US Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS), Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the IPUMS Current Population Survey (CPS) (https://cps.ipums.org/cps).
Suicide rate was extracted from WISQARS.
Divorce rate was extracted from National Center for Health Statistics, US Census Bureau.
Firearm ownership rate was extracted from BRFSS, General Social Survey (GSS).
Per-capita alcohol consumption was extracted from BRFSS and GSS.
Rate of drug use was extracted from BRFSS and GSS.
Non-firearm homicide rate was extracted from Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), Bureau of Justice Statistics, Justice Research and Statistics Association, and WISQARS.
<b>Individual-level Data Source(s):</b> Age, gender, income, type of primary insurance, the state where the hospital is, presence of multi-morbidity, history of alcoholism, history of drug use, non-fatal firearm injury, race/ethnicity, and firearm injury intent information was extracted from National Inpatient Sample (NIS), Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS).
Users should note that the Trace The Guns link provided above is no longer active at the time of this release.
The final datasets included in the study only contain aggregated state-level data sets with state-specific characteristics.
description: This study included state-level information on:

Firearms: Firearm laws, firearm ownership, and non-firearm homicide rate
Population statistics: Minority proportion, unemployment rate, income inequality, suicide rate, divorce rate, alcohol consumption and rate of drug use.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: Racial and Ethnic Differences In Non-Fatal Firearm Injuries, United States, 1993-2017
description: States of the United States. Smallest Geographic Unit: State
description: record abstracts