- Tips for Spending Holiday Time With Family Members Who Live with Dementia
- Tainted Cucumbers Now Linked to 100 Salmonella Cases in 23 States
- Check Your Pantry, Lay’s Classic Potato Chips Recalled Due to Milk Allergy Risk
- Norovirus Sickens Hundreds on Three Cruise Ships: CDC
- Not Just Blabber: What Baby’s First Vocalizations and Coos Can Tell Us
- What’s the Link Between Memory Problems and Sexism?
- Supreme Court to Decide on South Carolina’s Bid to Cut Funding for Planned Parenthood
- Antibiotics Do Not Increase Risks for Cognitive Decline, Dementia in Older Adults, New Data Says
- A New Way to Treat Sjögren’s Disease? Researchers Are Hopeful
- Some Abortion Pill Users Surprised By Pain, Study Says
Your Odds for Accidental Gun Death Rise Greatly in Certain States
Americans’ risk of dying in a firearm accident depends in large part on where they live in the United States, a new study finds.
People in Southeastern states like Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama run the greatest risk of a gunshot accidentally killing them, researchers said.
Meanwhile, the risk of accidental gun death is much lower in Northeastern states like Massachusetts, New York, Maryland and Connecticut, results show.
“Crude rates in the states with the highest rates, clustered mostly in the Southeast, were about 10 times the rates in the states with the lowest rates, located mostly in the Northeast,” concluded researcher David Schwebel, a professor of psychology with the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Nationwide, more than 12,300 people died in gun accidents between 2001 and 2021, Schwebel found in his analysis of firearms deaths data maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The researchers also found that specific factors within a state increased the risk of death in a firearms accident.
Unsurprisingly, states with more gun owners carried a higher risk of accidental gun death.
But the study, published July 25 in the journal Injury Prevention, also found that having a higher percentage of families living below the poverty line is associated with an increased risk of accidental death.
Any solution to this risk is not going to be easy, Schwebel said.
“Attempts to alleviate the complex nature of poverty in America are challenging, complex and unlikely to happen quickly,” Schwebel in a journal news release. “Attempts to reduce firearms ownership are equally unlikely, and arguably inappropriate as firearms represent an integral part of culture and life for many Americans, including especially Americans living in rural areas.”
Instead, officials need to focus on policies that promote safe gun handling and storage, Schwebel said.
“Efforts to improve safe use, transport and storage of firearms, plus policy change to promote safer handling of firearms handling and engineering of safety devices for firearms and firearms storage locations are likely to be most effective,” he concluded.
More information
The National Shooting Sports Foundation has more on firearms safety.
SOURCE: BMJ, news release, July 25, 2024
Source: HealthDay
Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.