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According to a new study published in Pediatrics, 20 children a day are hospitalized for gunshot wounds in the United States. The study also found that 9 out of 10 cases involved male patients, with black boys being hospitalized 10 times as often as white boys.

READ: Is Gun Violence A Health Disparity?

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Out of the over 7,000 hospitalizations of children, 453 died while in the hospital, according to Dr. John Leventhal, the study’s lead study and a Yale professor of pediatrics.

“Three firearms-related patients each day are younger than 15 years of age,” Leventhal said. “This is a tragedy. There are substantial injuries to these children that may have lifelong consequences.”

The most common types of firearm injuries were open wounds (52 percent), fractures (50 percent), and internal injuries of the chest, abdomen or pelvis (34 percent), the report showed.

“Those don’t necessarily heal,” Leventhal said. “Those children will struggle with these injuries for the rest of their lives.”

READ: Lessons From Sandy Hook: Guns & Black Mental Health

More than half of the gun injuries involved an attack on the child, but nearly one-third were unintentional, the investigators found.

  •  Three of four hospitalizations of children younger than 10 resulted from accidental injuries.
  • About 84 percent of these shootings involved teens aged 15 to 19.
  • Two-thirds of reported injuries were related to assaults.

“Some of these are school shootings, some are gang-related, some are related to fights or disagreements,” Leventhal said. “They all relate to access to guns.”

Study: Black Boys Hospitalized 10 Times More For Gun Injuries  was originally published on blackdoctor.org

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