Accurate data on firearm injuries in the United States are critical to understand the full cost or social burden of gun violence. However, there is no single resource that provides reliable estimates of state-level nonfatal firearm injuries. The data that do exist are sparse, and in some cases, too costly for most researchers to access.

This lack of information limits our ability to answer basic questions about gun violence, such as whether trends in gun injuries are changing over time, or whether existing strategies to reduce firearm-related harms are effective.

As part of the Gun Policy in America initiative, RAND researchers developed a longitudinal database of state-level estimates of inpatient hospitalizations for firearm injury between 2000 and 2016. This database was first released in 2021 and is free to the public.

These estimates draw from several data sources; the largest sources are the summaries of State Inpatient Databases (SID), which are supplemented with other state health department data. The estimates do not include emergency department visits that do not result in a subsequent hospitalization, or gunshot injuries for which hospital-based medical care is not sought.

We estimate that, between 2000 and 2016, there were 547,821 inpatient hospitalizations for firearm injury across the nation. The data also reveal substantial differences in the rate of inpatient hospitalizations for firearm injury across states, and relatively stable national trends, and could help answer questions about the impact of state policies and the social cost of firearm injuries for states and the nation.

Read the full article about firearm injury hospitalizations at the RAND Corporation.