JAMA Internal Medicine publishes more articles on firearm violence

JAMA Internal Medicine is publishing another collection of articles on firearm violence, including two original investigations, two commentaries and an editorial. JAMA also is publishing a research letter on gun violence research.

"In this issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, we continue our focus on firearm violence by publishing two studies and related commentaries on innovative approaches to understanding and responding to firearm homicides in urban areas," writes JAMA Internal Medicine Editor at Large Robert Steinbrook, M.D., of the Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn., in the editorial, "Responding to Firearm Homicide in Urban Areas."

Details on the articles are below.

The original investigation, "Association of Drug and Alcohol Use With Adolescent Firearm Homicide at Individual, Family and Neighborhood Levels," by Bernadette C. Hohl, Ph.D., M.P.H., of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, and coauthors concludes: "Almost all adolescent homicides in Philadelphia between 2010 and 2012 were committed with a firearm. Substance use at the individual, family, and neighborhood levels was associated with increased odds of adolescent firearm homicide; drug use was associated at all three levels and alcohol at the individual and neighborhood levels. Expanding violence prevention efforts to target drug and alcohol use at multiple levels may help to reduce the firearm violence that disproportionately affects adolescents in minority populations in large U.S. cities."

The original investigation, "Modeling Contagion Through Social Networks to Explain and Predict Gunshot Violence in Chicago, 2006 to 2014," by Andrew V. Papachristos, Ph.D., of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., and coauthors concludes: "Gunshot violence follows an epidemic-like process of social contagion that is transmitted through networks of people by social interactions. Violence prevention efforts that account for social contagion, in addition to demographics, have the potential to prevent more shootings than efforts that focus on only demographics."

Also available are the commentaries, "The Roles of Alcohol and Drugs in Firearm Violence" and "Firearm Violence as a Disease - 'Hot People' or 'Hot Spots?'"

The research letter in JAMA, "Funding and Publication of Research on Gun Violence and Other Leading Causes of Death," by David E. Stark, M.D., M.S., of the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and a coauthor concludes: "Injury research has been generally unsupported - a finding replicated in the present study. Gun violence had less funding and fewer publications than comparable injury-related causes of death including motor vehicle accidents and poisonings. Given that gun violence disproportionately affects the young and inflicts many more nonfatal injuries than deaths, it is likely that the true magnitude of research funding disparity, when considering years of potential life lost or lived with disability, is even greater."