NYC Firearm Deaths Show Complex Link to Drug Use and Race

NEW YORK CITY, April 12 - More than half of those killed by firearms in New York City between 1990 and 1998 tested positive for drugs, but shooting deaths overall declined as the decade drew to a close, according to a new study to be released Tuesday in the Journal of Urban Health, published by The New York Academy of Medicine. Despite the decline, African-Americans and Latinos remained three times more likely than whites to be victims of shooting violence.

Of the 11,133 total firearm-related deaths in the city in that period, 55.3 percent of the victims tested positive for cocaine, marijuana, opiates (i.e., heroin) and/or alcohol, according to researchers, who combed eight years of records from the city's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York.

Fatal shootings in the five boroughs dropped notably to 526 in 1998 from 1,720 in 1990, the study shows, while the proportion of drug-positive victims held steady. African-Americans and Latinos remained about three times more likely than whites to be victims of fatal firearm violence in 1998, though the race gap narrowed by that time.

While this study does not investigate drug use habits of those who fired the weapons, it provides further evidence that alcohol and illicit drugs continue to play a role in firearm mortalities, said lead author Sandro Galea, M.D., M.P.H., an epidemiologist in the Academy's Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies (CUES).

"The overall decrease in firearm homicides in New York City is reassuring," Galea said. "However, the disparities in mortality between racial and ethnic groups remains a clear cause for concern." Other authors of the study are: Jennifer Ahern, M.P.H., of CUES; David Vlahov, Ph.D., CUES director; and Kenneth Tardiff, M.D., M.P.H. and Andrew Leon, Ph.D., of the Cornell University Medical College Department of Psychiatry.

The study, "Drugs and Firearm Deaths in New York City, 1990-1998," was funded in part by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It is among five research papers in the Journal's special "Firearms and Violence" section to be released Tuesday. The other firearm studies in the Journal found that:

• Women are much more likely to die at the hands of a gun-wielder in states where guns are more prevalent, according to Harvard University researchers. Between 1988 and 1997, women in high-gun states (Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and West Virginia) were 1.5 times more likely to die from suicide, 2.7 times more likely to die from homicide, and 11.2 times more likely to die from firearm accidents than in low-gun states (Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Delaware).

• Firearm use is the leading method of suicide and has been for two decades, according to scientists from the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis. Restricting firearm access could curb suicides, the study suggests.

• Unintentional gun deaths in the U.S. have steadily declined in the last century, according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. Some possible explanations: the number of gun-owning households dropped 32 percent from 1973 to 2000, and a smaller percentage of households have an adult male.

• Guns are readily available to criminally involved youths through their social networks, according to a study led by Johns Hopkins University.

The New York City study shows that the predominant illegal drug used by fatal shooting victims changed as the '90s progressed, and that choices varied by race. Cocaine was the most prevalent illegal drug detected in victims in 1990, autopsy records show, but marijuana took the lead from 1994-98. Alcohol was the most widely found drug in Latino and white victims in 1998, while marijuana was dominant in African-Americans.

Researchers also found that:

• Brooklyn was the deadliest borough from1990-98, with 35 percent of gun-related deaths.

• More than one-third of fatal shooting victims were 15-24 years old.

• The face of firearm deaths is mostly male (91.4 percent) and minority (48.1 percent African American, and 35.9 percent Latino). Whites comprise 12 percent of victims.

• Gun-related deaths dropped by two-thirds among African-American men from 1990-98, by nearly half for white men, and by nearly four times among Latino males.

• Minority women are more likely to be firearm homicide victims than are white women.

NYAM researchers are continuing the study, collecting data for the last four years. A follow-up study will be released by next year.

The New York Academy of Medicine is a non-profit organization founded in 1847 that is dedicated to enhancing the health of the public through research, education and advocacy, with a particular focus on disadvantaged urban populations. The Academy formed and sponsors "Doctors Against Handgun Injury," a coalition of 12 professional medical societies working to reduce death and injury from handguns. The Academy publishes the Journal of Urban Health quarterly. View it online at http://www.jurban.oupjournals.org/?f2

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Posted on April 12, 2002

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