Firearm Violence Called Leading Cause of ‘Years of Potential Life Lost’
Researchers found that between 2009 and 2018, Americans have lost 12.6 million years of life because of firearms alone.
Landwebs
Researchers from the Westchester Medical Center, in Valhalla, NY report that between 2009 and 2018, Americans have lost 12.6 million years of life because of firearms alone, according to findings published in Trauma Surgery & Acute Care Open.
The researchers looked at data over the nine-year period from the National Vital Statistics Reports published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) land the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System database.
The “years of potential life lost” variable was calculated by the CDC standard of subtracting the age at death from the standard year of 80, and then summing the individual years of potential life lost (YPLL) across each cause of death, the full report outlines.
White Male Victims of Suicide
Summarized by the Washington Post, the researchers found that white males — who constitute the majority of firearm deaths — lost the most years of potential life because of suicide by gun, “a total of 4.95 million potential years during the decade-long study period.” Of those suicide deaths, a significant amount of them are 65 years and older.
This number is even larger than the deaths related to firearm homicide, which disproportionately impacts Black males, the report outlines. The majority who died by homicide were between the ages of 15 and 24.
Looking further at the gender breakdown, men made up the majority (85.4 percent) of the 38,929 firearms researched. “Although females were much less likely to die because of a firearm, gun suicide was on the rise among women, too; they lost over 867,000 years of potential life because of suicide,” the Washington Post details.
Lastly, these Westchester medical Center researchers concluded that firearms are now the leading traumatic cause of years of potential life lost, overtaking motor vehicle crashes, which has been the main cause of life lost for individuals since 2017.
Second Amendment advocates argue that the right to bear arms can prevent deaths, but the researchers write, “the data reveal that the resulting access to firearms has equated to magnitudes of death due to firearm suicides in the same individuals demanding access to firearms.” They call for more tailored suicide prevention programs aimed at those at highest risk, and the restriction of access to “all methods of suicide,” the Washington Post explains.
“Deaths related to firearms are potentially preventable causes of death and prevention efforts should be redirected,” the report concludes.
Researchers Joshua Klein, Kartik Prabhakaran, Rifat Latifi, and Peter Rhee are with the Westchester Medical Center.
The full study can be accessed here.
Additional Reading: CA Mass Killing Highlights Intersection of Guns and Domestic Abuse
