COVID-19-related violence trend data challenges & a resource for injury researchers

Abstract

Published works have raised concerns that certain violent behaviors and firearm acquisition have encountered dramatic increases since the onset of COVID-19. While these works provide important preliminary insights, they lack the empirical robustness necessary to inform a targeted societal response. Having the ability to perform the research needed to support evidence-based policy requires that data at national, state and local-levels be accessible and of sufficient quality. While related, robust data sources do arguably exist, their availability may come long after the window for effective prevention and intervention efforts has closed or may otherwise present with quality limitations, leaving populations at risk for various forms of violence without the support of protective policies.The University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center and the Public Policy Center has compiled a compendium of secondary data sources in an effort to promote exploration of relationships between the COVID-19 pandemic and rates of injury and violence. The forms of violence and firearm-related behavior that were identified as being at risk for amplification given the social stress, economic stress and isolation associated with the public health emergency period included: firearm acquisition, firearm violence, intimate partner violence and family violence.

Racial Disparities in Child Exposure to Firearm Violence Before and During COVID-19

“…In prior work, fatal shootings matched government records at higher rates (83%) 23 and closely aligned with aggregated government data. 13 It is unknown whether GVA data on fatal shootings display systematic bias (e.g., by victim's race), but if they did, the current study would likely underestimate disparities. Moreover, though the current study's results align with estimates from other sources that homicides increased by approximately 30% during the COVID-19 pandemic, 44 it is possible that GVA data collection procedures have improved over time, in which case using these data to assess longitudinal trends could overestimate the COVID-19-related increase in firearm injuries.…”

“…GVA captures fatal shootings with good accuracy: 83% of fatal shootings from 3 cities were accurately represented in GVA data on date, location, and victim age and gender 23 ; in 2018, GVA under-reported fatal shootings by just 2%, compared with government counts. 13 By contrast, GVA only matched 43% of nonfatal shooting incidents in the 3-city study, and no government source exists for nonfatal shootings, leaving important questions about GVA accuracy for nonfatal shootings.…”

Assessing the Gun Violence Archive as an Epidemiologic Data Source for Community Firearm Violence in 4 US Cities

“…GVA has allowed researchers to conduct analyses of fatal and nonfatal intentional interpersonal shootings on a national level, including studies examining the spike in firearm violence following COVID-19 containment policies. Some prior work has found that the annual counts of homicides in the GVA align closely with federal estimates, yet other work has found that the GVA data contain gaps . To our knowledge, no study has validated event-level counts of GVA incidents, although some studies have shown aggregate area-level counts of the GVA data to be correlated with data provided by police departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.…”