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Prevalence of Household Firearms and Firearm-Storage Practices in the 50 States and the District of Columbia: Findings From the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2002

2005; American Academy of Pediatrics; Volume: 116; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1542/peds.2005-0300

1098-4275

Catherine A. Okoro, David E. Nelson, James A. Mercy, Lina S. Balluz, Alex E. Crosby, Ali H. Mokdad,

Injury Epidemiology and Prevention

To examine the prevalence of household firearms and firearm-storage practices in the 50 states and the District of Columbia and estimate the number of children exposed to unsafe storage practices.We analyzed data from the 2002 cross-sectional Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey of 240735 adults from randomly selected households with telephones in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.Nationally, 32.6% of adults reported that firearms were kept in or around their home. The prevalence of adults with household firearms ranged from 5.2% in the District of Columbia to 62.8% in Wyoming (median: 40.8%). The prevalence of adults with loaded household firearms ranged from 1.6% in Hawaii, Massachusetts, and New Jersey to 19.2% in Alabama (median: 7.0%), and the prevalence of adults with loaded and unlocked household firearms ranged from 0.4% in Massachusetts to 12.7% in Alabama (median: 4.2%). Among adults with children and youth <18 years old, the prevalence of loaded household firearms ranged from 1.0% to 13.4% (median: 5.3%), and the prevalence of loaded and unlocked household firearms ranged from 0.3% to 7.3% (median: 2.3%); in each instance, Massachusetts had the lowest prevalence and Alabama had the highest. Findings indicate that approximately 1.69 million (95% confidence interval: 1.57-1.82 million) children and youth in the United States <18 years old are living with loaded and unlocked household firearms.Substantial state variations exist in the prevalence of household firearms and firearm-storage practices. It is vital that surveillance systems such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System continue to monitor the prevalence of household firearms and firearm-storage practices so that future interventions to promote safe storage of firearms can be evaluated and more widely implemented based on their efficacy.