Injury Severity

Pie chart showing firearm injuries by injury severity.

Counts

Bar chart showing firearm injuries by injury severity.

This dashboard contains data on firearm injuries among Californians that resulted in death or treatment at a California state-licensed hospital or emergency department (ED). Non-fatal firearm injuries that result in hospital admission are typically more severe than those where the victim is treated and discharged from the ED. The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates that the average initial cost for firearm injury treatment is roughly $30,000 for hospitalizations and $1,500 for ED visits. Many victims who survive firearm injuries will require follow-up treatment after discharge from acute care, including additional surgery, physical therapy, and mental health services.

Injury Intent

Pie chart showing firearm injuries by injury intent.

Counts

Bar chart showing firearm injuries by injury intent.

Intent is meant to capture the reason for the injury. Intents include unintentional (accidental), suicide/self-harm, homicide/assault, undetermined, and legal intervention/war operations. Intent is recorded by coroners or medical examiners for fatal injuries and clinicians and hospital staff for non-fatal injuries. It is based on information available, and may not always be known. For non-fatal injuries, coding guidelines from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services state that when the injury intent is unknown, the coders should default to unintentional intent. Because of this, non-fatal unintentional firearm injuries are likely over-reported and non-fatal assault firearm injuries are likely under-reported. Non-fatal self-harm firearm injuries are rare because suicide attempts with a firearm are almost always fatal.

Injury Year

Counts

Line graph showing firearm injuries by year.

Injury year corresponds to the time period when the victim died, was discharged from the hospital, or received care in the ED. The firearm injury data on this dashboard go back to 2016 because prior years of hospitalization and ED injury data are not directly comparable due to changes to the non-fatal injury coding system that occurred in 2015. Similar to national trends , California’s firearm homicide rate declined sharply through the 1990’s, then remained relatively stable through 2015. California’s firearm suicide rate declined gradually from the early 1990s to mid-2000s, then remained relatively stable through 2015. California firearm injury data for years prior to 2016 can be queried on CDPH’s legacy EpiCenter site.

Victim Age

Counts

Bar chart showing firearm injuries by victim age.

Victim age is recorded at the time of death, admittance to the hospital, or ED service date. Similar to national trends , California rates of homicide/assault firearm injuries peak in the late teens and early 20s, while rates of suicide/self-harm firearm injuries also peak in the late teens and early 20s but then continue to rise through older adulthood (Pallin et al., 2019).

Victim Sex

Pie chart showing firearm injuries by victim sex.

Counts

Bar chart showing firearm injuries by victim sex.

Sex is defined differently based on the data source. For deaths, sex is the sex provided on the death certificate, which is generally a decedent's biological sex or sex assigned at birth. “Other/Unknown” is used when sex is not recorded, unknown, or non-binary. For nonfatal emergency department visits and hospitalizations, sex refers to a patient’s biologic sex. “Other/Unknown” is used when sex is not recorded or in the case of undetermined sex and congenital abnormalities that obscure sex identification.

In California and nationally, males are much more likely than females to be victims of firearm injuries. The vital statistics and healthcare data used on this dashboard do not contain information on the shooter when a victim is shot by another person. However, data from the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports indicate that males accounted for almost 93% of firearm homicide offenders in California from 2016 to 2020.

Victim Race and Ethnicity

Pie chart showing firearm injuries by victim race and ethnicity.

Counts

Bar chart showing firearm injuries by victim race and ethnicity.

Victim Race and Ethnicity** is reported by an informant for deaths. For non-fatal hospitalizations and ED visits race and ethnicity is self reported and recorded by a provider. The Hispanic category includes Hispanic ethnicity of any race; all other categories are non-Hispanic. Consistent with national patterns (Kegler et al., 2022), non-Hispanic White Californians have the highest rates of suicide/self-harm firearm injuries and non-Hispanic Black Californians have the highest rates of homicide/assault firearm injuries. Research suggests that differences in firearm injuries by race and ethnicity are largely attributable to the constellation of external social contexts that are differentially allocated by racial and ethnic status in American society (Sampson et al., 2005). These include family structure, residential stability, generation since immigration, economic opportunities, neighborhood environment, religious involvement (Lawrence et al., 2016) and firearm access (IVPB).

**Due to dataset differences, to protect privacy, and prevent reidentification of individuals, disaggregated race and ethnicity data are not provided on the firearm dashboard but are available on EpiCenter. In instances where there are small counts of specified groups that would risk re-identification of individuals, the data available on EpiCenter will be masked according to CDPH Data De-Identification Guidelines.

Victim County of Residence

Counts

Choropleth map and bar chart showing firearm injuries by victim county of residence.

County of residence is based on the victim’s residential address. Victims with no address or an unreported address are categorized as “N/A (Unknown or Unhoused).” In general, urban areas tend to have higher rates of firearm homicide and rural areas tend to have higher rates of firearm suicide (Branas et al., 2004). Geographic patterns of firearm injuries can be attributed in part to structural inequalities. Firearm homicide rates are higher in areas with greater poverty, income inequality, and unemployment and less social mobility and social capital (Kim, 2019). Firearm suicides, along with drug overdoses and alcoholic liver disease mortality, are considered “deaths of despair.” They disproportionately affect middle-aged, less-educated, White populations living in rural communities that have experienced a loss of economic and social status since the turn of the century (Case & Deaton, 2015).

* indicates data are suppressed to protect privacy.

Documentation

This dashboard was developed by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (IVPB). To learn more about what IVPB is doing to prevent firearm injuries, visit the Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (IVPB) home page.