June 30, 2017 – Child Gun Deaths

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Anchor lead: Children comprise a disturbing percentage of gun-related deaths, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Children younger than 18 years of age account for thousands of gun-related injuries and deaths yearly, the CDC has reported. Mike Klag, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, reviews the findings.

Klag: This is very disturbing data, so this is data from the CDC looking at data in the US from 2012 to 2014, indicating that on average, 5790 children received medical treatment in an emergency room for a gun-related injury. And about 21% are unintentional. If you look at the number of children dying an incredibly sad statistic. That from 2012 to 2014 1297 children died annually from a gun-related injury.  :30

Klag says empowering primary care physicians to ask about guns in the home is an important part of stemming the tide of this tragedy, as well as public health education efforts regarding gun and ammunition storage to keep firearms away from children at all times. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.