Youth Gun Homicides Doubled During Second Half of Pandemic

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, firearm violence surpassed motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death among US children. A new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) for the first time reveals how this worrying pattern among children varied by age—and how the pandemic-related gun homicide spike is rising faster among kids than adults.

Published in JAMA Pediatrics, the study found that the spike in gun death rates during the first two years of the pandemic disproportionately affected adolescents ages 10–16, as well as adults over 30 years old. These increases lowered the peak risk of being a victim of a fatal shooting from 21 years old to 19 years old.

Also concerning is that as adult gun death rates returned to pre-COVID levels in 2022 and 2023, gun homicide rates continued increasing for the 10–16 adolescent age group, doubling pre-pandemic rates.

These results underscore the need to improve gun violence prevention programs and policies substantially for all age groups, but especially school-aged children, for whom few such programs exist. Most community-based violence intervention (CVI) programs target older teens and adults, the groups that are traditionally at highest risk of gun violence. But these latest findings indicate that the victims of gun violence are getting—and staying—younger than in pre-pandemic times.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-youth-gun-homicides-pandemic-adult.html