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Firearm access and adolescent suicide risk: toward a clearer understanding of effect size

BACKGROUND: Strong and consistent associations between access to firearms and suicide have been found in ecologic and individual-level observational studies. For adolescents, a seminal case–control study estimated that living in a home with (vs without) a firearm was associated with a fourfold incre...

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Autores principales: Swanson, Sonja A, Eyllon, Mara, Sheu, Yi-Han, Miller, Matthew
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8165151/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32409621
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2019-043605
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author Swanson, Sonja A
Eyllon, Mara
Sheu, Yi-Han
Miller, Matthew
author_facet Swanson, Sonja A
Eyllon, Mara
Sheu, Yi-Han
Miller, Matthew
author_sort Swanson, Sonja A
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Strong and consistent associations between access to firearms and suicide have been found in ecologic and individual-level observational studies. For adolescents, a seminal case–control study estimated that living in a home with (vs without) a firearm was associated with a fourfold increase in the risk of death by suicide. METHODS: We use data from a nationally representative study of 10 123 US adolescents aged 13–18 years to (1) measure how much adolescents who live in a home with a firearm differ from those who do not in ways related to their risk of suicide, and (2) incorporate these differences into an updated effect estimate of the risk of adolescent suicide attributable to living in a home with firearms. RESULTS: Almost one-third (30.7%) of adolescents reported living in a home with firearms. Relative to those who did not, adolescents reporting living in a home with a firearm were slightly more likely to be male, older and reside in the South and rural areas, but few differences were identified for mental health characteristics. The effect size found by Brent and colleagues appeared robust to sources of possible residual confounding: updated relative risks remained above 4.0 across most sensitivity analyses and at least 3.1 in even the most conservative estimates. CONCLUSIONS: Although unmeasured confounding and other biases may nonetheless remain, our updated estimates reinforce the suggestion that adolescents’ risk of suicide was increased threefold to fourfold if they had lived in homes with a firearm compared with if they had not.
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spelling pubmed-81651512021-06-14 Firearm access and adolescent suicide risk: toward a clearer understanding of effect size Swanson, Sonja A Eyllon, Mara Sheu, Yi-Han Miller, Matthew Inj Prev Original Research BACKGROUND: Strong and consistent associations between access to firearms and suicide have been found in ecologic and individual-level observational studies. For adolescents, a seminal case–control study estimated that living in a home with (vs without) a firearm was associated with a fourfold increase in the risk of death by suicide. METHODS: We use data from a nationally representative study of 10 123 US adolescents aged 13–18 years to (1) measure how much adolescents who live in a home with a firearm differ from those who do not in ways related to their risk of suicide, and (2) incorporate these differences into an updated effect estimate of the risk of adolescent suicide attributable to living in a home with firearms. RESULTS: Almost one-third (30.7%) of adolescents reported living in a home with firearms. Relative to those who did not, adolescents reporting living in a home with a firearm were slightly more likely to be male, older and reside in the South and rural areas, but few differences were identified for mental health characteristics. The effect size found by Brent and colleagues appeared robust to sources of possible residual confounding: updated relative risks remained above 4.0 across most sensitivity analyses and at least 3.1 in even the most conservative estimates. CONCLUSIONS: Although unmeasured confounding and other biases may nonetheless remain, our updated estimates reinforce the suggestion that adolescents’ risk of suicide was increased threefold to fourfold if they had lived in homes with a firearm compared with if they had not. BMJ Publishing Group 2021-06 2020-05-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8165151/ /pubmed/32409621 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2019-043605 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Research
Swanson, Sonja A
Eyllon, Mara
Sheu, Yi-Han
Miller, Matthew
Firearm access and adolescent suicide risk: toward a clearer understanding of effect size
title Firearm access and adolescent suicide risk: toward a clearer understanding of effect size
title_full Firearm access and adolescent suicide risk: toward a clearer understanding of effect size
title_fullStr Firearm access and adolescent suicide risk: toward a clearer understanding of effect size
title_full_unstemmed Firearm access and adolescent suicide risk: toward a clearer understanding of effect size
title_short Firearm access and adolescent suicide risk: toward a clearer understanding of effect size
title_sort firearm access and adolescent suicide risk: toward a clearer understanding of effect size
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8165151/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32409621
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2019-043605
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