Rates of firearm assaults on children have roughly doubled during the covid-19 pandemic, according to a study that looked at gun deaths and injuries in four major cities. Black children were the most frequent victims.
A broader analysis from Boston University included a review of firearm assaults between mid-March 2020 and December 2021 in Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York. It found that black children were 100 times more likely than white children to be victims of fatal and non-fatal shootings. Before the pandemic, they were 27 times more likely. The researchers excluded accidental shootings and incidents of self-harm.
Study author Jonathan Jay, who studies urban health, said the team looked at the rates to understand whether some children were more at risk than others.
“We knew that children of color, even before the pandemic, were more likely than non-Hispanic white children to be shot, and we also knew that child gun victimization seemed to be increasing during the pandemic,” said Jay. “But no one had looked at how racial disparities in child victimization might have changed.”
Researchers are still unpacking pandemic-specific factors that may have driven the change, he said. Some of the influences they consider include “the stress associated with job losses, school closures, loss of access to certain types of services that have closed,” he said. “Also, really visible police violence, especially against people of color. Loss of loved ones and family members due to covid-19 virus.
As a black teenager in Philadelphia, Makhi Hemphill regularly thinks about the threat of gunfire, he said. The 16-year-old grew up in North Philly, an area that has seen around two dozen gun homicides this year and numerous other gun injuries.
He said he was very mindful of his surroundings when he was outside.
“I always have the thought behind my head to protect myself, because of the way this world is right now,” he said. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to me, and my mom doesn’t want anything bad to happen to me either.”
The rate of child gun assault in Philadelphia has fallen from about 30 per 100,000 children to about 62 per 100,000 during the pandemic.
Makhi said he thinks some teens have been fighting during the covid pandemic because they’ve been spending too much time on social media, and for some the frustration and isolation has led to violent behavior.
“People are at home, maybe their home is not their safe place,” he said. “They couldn’t escape because they couldn’t leave the house. So maybe they took a break or something.
In 2020, firearms became the leading cause of death among American children, surpassing car accidents for the first time in decades, according to the CDC.
The National Institutes of Health estimates that 16.6 million American adults purchased a firearm in 2020, up from 13.8 million in 2019, according to an NIH analysis of the National Firearms Survey.
“With covid, we’ve seen an increase in gun purchases and more guns in the home,” said Joel Fein, physician and co-director of Children’s Hospital’s Violence Prevention Center. of Philadelphia. “SO [children] were in places where there were now more guns, and probably more guns on the streets as well.
In late March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data showing that there were 36% more average weekly ER visits for firearm injuries in 2021 than in 2019, with the biggest increase among children 14 and under.
Chethan Sathya, trauma surgeon and director of Northwell Health’s Gun Violence Prevention Center, said his children’s hospital has seen a 350% increase in gunshot patients over the past year.
He said the emerging data on child gun deaths should be a clear call to policy makers.
“The violence intervention groups are doing a very good job,” he said. “These studies show that they are needed more than ever. [Gun violence] affects and has disproportionately affected black children, and it’s horrific. So how can we step in as a community to address the root causes? »
At the hospital where he works in Queens, New York, Sathya said, prevention starts with asking all patients screening questions about gun access and risk factors, and providing trauma-informed services to severely injured patients.
Kaliek Hayes, founder of a Philadelphia nonprofit called Childhoods Lost Foundation, said he and other community leaders in neighborhoods where gun violence is prevalent try to reach children early so they don’t not be swept away by the crisis.
This means connecting them to a network of after-school mentoring programs, athletic and artistic opportunities, and career preparation offerings.
“If we err on the side of moving forward before that happens, a lot of the numbers we see would be different,” Hayes said.
This article is part of a partnership that includes WHYY, NPR and KFF Health News.