title: Firearm injuries in a pediatric population: African-American adolescents continue to carry the heavy burden.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Firearm injuries have the highest case-fatality rate among pediatric trauma related deaths. We sought to determine whether demographics, mechanism of injury, and outcomes were age specific.
  
  
  METHODS
  We performed a 5 year retrospective analysis of patients 0-19 years old with firearm related injuries. Children were divided into two cohorts based on age. Mann-Whitney and Pearson's X2were used to compare continuous and categorical variables, respectively. Significance was established at p < 0.05.
  
  
  METHODS
  Compared to their younger counterparts, children >15 years old were more likely to be male (82% vs. 90%, p = 0.02), African-American (71% vs 89%, p < 0.0001), and injured due to assault (76.9% vs 44.6%, p < 0.0001). Mortality rates for children <14 was 1.4 times the national average (10.7% vs. 7.5%) while the rate for children >15 was 3.9 times the national average (12.4% vs. 3.2%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Firearm injuries continue to be a prevalent public health concern greatly affecting African-American adolescent males. Prevention strategies and trauma related healthcare resource utilization should target this group in order to reduce the risk of injury and improve outcomes and case-fatality in our population.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pediatric Surgery, University of Tennessee, Health Science Center, Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, 51 North Dunlap, Suite 230, Memphis, TN, 38105, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bachier-Rodriguez
authors.affiliation: Division of Pediatric Surgery, University of Tennessee, Health Science Center, Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, 51 North Dunlap, Suite 230, Memphis, TN, 38105, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Freeman
authors.affiliation: Division of Pediatric Surgery, University of Tennessee, Health Science Center, Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, 51 North Dunlap, Suite 230, Memphis, TN, 38105, USA. Electronic address: afeliz@uthsc.edu.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Feliz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D012042:Registries; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014948:Wounds, Gunshot / Q000401:mortality*
keywords: Adolescent; Firearm injuries; Healthcare disparities; Pediatric trauma