Geospatial clusters are seen in pediatric firearm injuries, and most of these incidents occur within the same ZIP code as the child’s home, according to a study published in Pediatrics.

Craig D. Newgard, M.D., M.P.H., from the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study from Jan. 1, 2012, through Dec. 31, 2022, to examine spatial clustering of pediatric firearm injuries using national 9-1-1 emergency medical services (EMS) responses for children aged 0 to 17 years in 50 states. Spatial changes were examined over time for 37 states with continuous data over the study period.

The researchers found that there were 10,521,575 9-1-1 EMS responses from 30,393 incident ZIP codes during the study period, including 26,101 (0.25%) for firearm injuries (14.1 and 85.9% in children [0 to 10 years] and adolescents [11 to 17 years], respectively). Overall, 80.9% of the firearm injuries among 3,679 children occurred in their home ZIP code and 40.5% occurred in a cluster; among 22,422 adolescents with firearm injuries, 69.7 and 51.5% occurred in their home ZIP code and in a cluster, respectively.

Among 6,103,297 events in 11,433 ZIP codes in 37 states, 47.8 and 32.1% clustered ZIP codes were new for children and adolescents, respectively, in 2022; similar results were seen using home ZIP codes.

“The rate of pediatric firearm injuries and number of hotspots increased over time, with many new ZIP codes included as hotspots in 2022,” the authors write.

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