How Health Care Can (and Must) Reduce Firearm Suicide

As the world continues to struggle to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, there is another ongoing health crisis that continues unabated and, in some cases, has grown even worse: The epidemic of gun-related injury and death.

But while tragic events like mass shootings and firearm homicides are often reported in the news, the majority of the United States’ firearm-caused deaths – two-thirds, by some counts – are suicides. In 2019, an average of 66 people each day died by suicide with a gun, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And we know that access to a gun triples the risk of death by suicide compared to that of people without access to a firearm.

As the pandemic continues to take a toll on our collective mental health, experts say gun-related suicides are on a troubling rise. The tragic fact is that firearm deaths, whether suicide, homicide or accidental, are a preventable public health epidemic that is severely damaging urban, rural and suburban communities across America. 

This is why the health care industry must do more to reduce firearm injuries just as we have for cancer, heart disease and other leading causes of death in America.

In 2018, Kaiser Permanente established the Task Force on Firearm Injury Prevention and invested $3.2 million to improve the health and safety of local communities, prevent non-fatal firearm injuries and save lives. In the first phase of the program, the task force – comprised of clinicians, researchers, and policymakers – identified gun-related research priorities and awarded $2 million in research funding for studies that focus on how clinicians can help prevent firearm injuries.

Just last month, one of the first studies funded by this program found that most patients receiving care for mental health and substance abuse will respond to a question about firearm access within a standard questionnaire during outpatient appointments. This finding could help dispel concerns by clinicians that asking about firearms will alienate patients, creating new opportunities for counseling around suicide risk, access to guns and safe firearm storage.

The lead author of this study, Julie Richards, PhD, MPH, has a tragic connection to the research after her mother died by firearm suicide. She believes that standard questions about firearm access during primary care and mental health visits have great potential value in suicide prevention. She and many others in her field are committed to continuing to study the ways that health care systems can improve how we identify, engage, and care for people at risk of suicide.

We are not suggesting that this work, or the involvement of health systems, will put an end to firearm suicides in America. But we can make a critical contribution given our trusted role in our patients’ lives and the time-tested health improvements we know health systems can make through research and clinical intervention. We are eager to do that work and hope that others in the health care industry will join us to help prevent more tragic deaths.