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Advances in data linkage and science for IP research

The recent COVID-19 pandemic stimulated unprecedented linkage of datasets worldwide, and while injury is endemic rather than pandemic, there is much to be learned by the injury prevention community from the data science approaches taken to respond to the pandemic to support research into the primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of injuries. The use of routinely collected data to produce real-world evidence, as an alternative to clinical trials, has been gaining in popularity as the availability and quality of digital health platforms grow and the linkage landscape, and the analytics required to make best use of linked and unstructured data, is rapidly evolving. Capitalising on existing data sources, innovative linkage and advanced analytic approaches provides the opportunity to undertake novel injury prevention research and generate new knowledge, while avoiding data waste and additional burden to participants. We provide a tangible, but not exhaustive, list of examples showing the breadth and value of data linkage, along with the emerging capabilities of natural language processing techniques to enhance injury research. To optimise data science approaches to injury prevention, injury researchers in this area need to share methods, code, models and tools to improve consistence and efficiencies in this field. Increased collaboration between injury prevention researchers and data scientists working on population data linkage systems has much to offer this field of research.

Locked and loaded: correlates of in-home firearm storage

Objectives

To understand how crime and victimisation fears and risks operate alongside social status threats and motivations to shape unsafe in-home firearm storage practices and beliefs.

Methods

Using data from firearm owners identified in a nationwide sample surveyed in 2023, this study examined how in-home loaded firearm accessibility, firearm storage practice and firearm safety beliefs are associated with: fear of crime and victimisation; perceived and personal victimisation; racial resentment; cultural and status threats; and masculinity threats. Regression models also accounted for the role of gender, race, marital status, political affiliation, geographic region and protective motivation for firearm ownership.

Results

Over 40% of firearm owners reported having a loaded firearm ‘always accessible’ at home, and almost half think homes with firearms are safer than those without. About one-third of owners reported storing firearms locked but still loaded. Crime and victimisation fears and threats were unrelated to firearm storage behaviours and beliefs; however, firearm owners who experience higher levels of sociocultural anxiety are more likely to always have a loaded firearm accessible at home, store firearms locked and loaded, and believe that firearms make homes safer.

Conclusions

Identifying the barriers to safer storage beliefs and behaviours is essential for refining and enhancing effective firearm injury prevention strategies. Sociocultural anxieties may not reflect concrete threats to physical safety, but they can be experienced as feelings of insecurity, instability and distress that—for some Americans—may be managed by knowing they have a (loaded) firearm within reach.

Harms and Benefits Inventory (HBI): validation of assessment

Introduction

Understanding gun owners’ perceptions of potential firearm policies’ harms and benefits is critical to successful policy development and implementation. We used national survey data to develop and validate a novel instrument, the Harms and Benefits Inventory (HBI), for policy-makers and advocates to better consider the citizen perspective.

Method

We conducted a nationally representative survey of American gun owners and non-owners (N=2007) using the Social Science Research Solutions probability panel. The survey included 31 candidate HBI items and questions about gun ownership and exposure, storage and carry behaviours, policy positions, and sociodemographic characteristics. Exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) were conducted on HBI items from a randomly selected subsample (N=1003) and then tested with a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on data from the second half of the sample (N=1004).

Results

The best-fitting EFA model was upheld in the CFA and included 21 items with 5 underlying factors. Underlying factors included: (1) firearm regulation, cost and accessibility, (2) special restrictions, (3) permit and education, (4) relaxed restrictions and (5) and hobby and sport. Internal consistency was good to excellent within each of the five scales. Validity was supported by correlations between HBI scales and survey questions.

Discussion

Findings support the validity of the HBI in assessing perceptions of potential harms and benefits of firearm policies and practices. Understanding perceptions of potential harms and benefits of gun policies at the time of development or implementation can improve uptake and reduce unintended consequences of these policies.

Childrens participatory needs in injury prevention

Background

Child-centred approaches in injury prevention emphasise the importance of practising bidirectional communications and decentring researcher–child power relations to support children’s participation in research. To date, however, a dearth of scholarship offers methodological reflections on how to bolster children’s feelings of comfort in discussing sensitive topics such as their injury experiences.

Goal

Drawing from lessons we learnt working with children in a low-income to mid-income neighbourhood in Vancouver, Canada, we discuss the ways in which our strategies to support their participation succeeded in, and at times fell short of, supporting their participatory needs.

Discussion

Our discussions focus attention on two important areas for consideration in future injury prevention studies: (1) Children’s inclusion in research and the demand for them to share experience and (2) supporting children’s right to invite and comfort in discussing sensitive topics such as injury experiences. We discuss the benefits of making research fun for children and being sensitive to their needs at preliminary recruitment and data collection stages.

Implications

These discussions can strengthen researchers’ work with children by helping them to reflect on strategies that can bolster their desire to participate and feel comfortable sharing perspectives.

Renewing Assault Weapons Ban Could Have Prevented Mass Shootings

Between 1994 and 2004, the federal assault weapons ban prohibited the sale and manufacture of certain military-style semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines in the US. A study in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance now suggests that the ban not only prevented an estimated 5 public mass shootings during those 10 years, but would have averted many more between 2005 and 2022 if it had stayed in place instead of being allowed to expire.