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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Matthew Miller, MD, ScD, Deborah Azrael, PhD, and David Hemenway, PhD. Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington ave, boston, MA 02115, 6174321459, mmiller@hsph.harvard.edu

Objectives: To explore the association between household firearm ownership and homicide across the 50 US states, by age and gender. Methods: Partial correlation coefficients estimate the magnitude of the cross sectional association between rates of household firearm ownership and homicide, 1999-2002. Analyses control for state-level rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, poverty, urbanization, and per capita alcohol consumption. Household firearm ownership prevalence for each of the 50 states were obtained from the first nationally representative survey to provide estimates of firearm prevalence for each of the 50 US states. Results: Household firearm ownership was significantly and positively related to both firearm homicide and total homicide, for both sexes and all age groups except males 15-24 years of age. For adult male victims, the association between household firearm ownership and homicide by firearms and overall homicide increased with age. Rates of non-firearm homicide were not related to rates of household firearm ownership for any group. Conclusions: Higher levels of household firearm ownership were associated with higher rates of homicide victimization, especially of women and children. No significant association was observed for homicide victimization of young adult males. Household firearm prevalence, as measured in telephone surveys of adult respondents, may not reflect the relative ease with which firearms used to kill young men are obtained. Alternative sources may depend on illegal markets, with trafficking patterns from high firearm prevalence, lenient gun law states to states with low firearm prevalence and strict gun control laws.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• Recognize the role of household firearm ownership in homicide
• Assess why the risk of homicide victimization associated with household firearm appears to be greater for women and children than for male adolescents and young adults
• Discuss why policy interventions targeting illegal trafficking of firearms may have a greater effect on young male homicide victimization than on homicide victimization of women and children.

Keywords: Firearms, Youth Violence

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation