Understanding Risk and Implementing Data-Driven Solutions for Firearm Suicide

Michael D. Anestis, Allison E. Bond and Shelby L. Bandel

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2022, vol. 704, issue 1, 204-222

Abstract: Each year, firearms account for half of all the suicide deaths in the U.S. Research has shown that, worldwide, the most effective way to prevent suicide is so-called means safety : making the tools and methods of suicide less accessible and less lethal. In the U.S., research has shown, time and again, that access to firearms increases the risk for suicide death, particularly when firearms are not stored safely. Means safety, therefore, could be a powerful tool in reducing suicide deaths in America, where firearms are highly lethal, widely available, and frequently used within a specific geographic area. For this nation to sustainably lower its suicide rate, the issue of access to firearms is pivotal. We argue for a public health approach to suicide prevention: one that would improve data linkage; promote the effective upstream use of interventions like lethal means counseling and safe firearm storage messaging; and deploy more systematic efforts to identify and understand subcommunities of firearm owners, including those who obtained their firearms illegally.

Keywords: suicide; means safety; firearms; secure storage; means restriction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00027162231173321 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:704:y:2022:i:1:p:204-222

DOI: 10.1177/00027162231173321

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().