How kids’ firearm injuries can be prevented

CHICAGO --- As the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the United States is now firearms, two new publications authored by scientists from Northwestern Medicine and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago discuss how and why these deaths can and should be prevented.

While the experts have limited availability for media interviews today and this weekend, they have provided the following insights from their research:

One study, published today in Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, reports a staggering 83% increase in youth firearm fatalities over the past decade. 

“We must reverse this deeply troubling and unacceptable trend in youth firearm fatalities, especially among youth of color,” said co-author Dr. Karen Sheehan, professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and medical director of Patrick M. Magoon Institute for Healthy Communities at Lurie Children’s. “We need more funding allocated to research-based prevention efforts so that we can save young lives before it’s too late.”

The senior author of the second publication, an analysis for preventing firearm injuries, is Dr. Sandi Lam, vice chair for pediatric neurological surgery at Feinberg and the division chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Lurie Children’s. She performs brain surgeries on children who need help, such as those with epilepsy, tumors and neurovascular conditions. In trauma situations, that includes operating on children with head injuries from firearms.

“I wanted to study how neurosurgeons and doctors can proactively be involved to help people in a different way, to try to prevent these incidents,” Lam said.

In a structured scoping review of current literature published recently in the journal Neurosurgery, Lam and colleagues found the following factors helped reduce firearm injuries to children: 

1) Counseling of families and kids every time to they come to see the pediatrician about screening for firearms in the home, safe storage practices of firearms and ammunition in the home, and general firearm safety. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a toolkit on gun safety.

2) Community outreach, education and screening: initiatives such as extra-curricular activities and having work opportunities for older kids. “For instance, higher dropout rate from school is correlated with increased risk of firearm injury," Lam said.

3) Policies improving safety, such as child-access prevention laws. 

“Certain states have these laws that create accountability and liability for firearm owners if they allow children access to firearms,” Lam said. “The goal is to reduce childhood firearm-associated injuries which could be from suicides, homicides or accidents.”

“It is understandable for people to feel scared and feel powerless,” Lam said. “As parents, do we need to worry when we send our kids to school? As community members, do we need to worry when we gather with others in our daily lives? As doctors, we are supposed to be helping and healing. It is natural to feel hopeless in our oath to help people when children come to our hospitals badly injured by guns. In our profession, we are about protecting kids and helping people.”

The study does not propose new ideas, Lam said, but is a structured synthesis of published literature to provide a reliable framework. 

“We can inform ourselves and our readers with data and science to understand how to be part of the solution,” Lam said. “There are multiple ways to promote safety for our patients, families, and communities." 

Of her own life, Lam said, “If my kids are going to a friend’s house, I check to see if there are guns in the home and how they are secured. I do everything I can do to keep them safe.”