Firearm injuries dashboard

How to Use This Dashboard

The Utah Public Firearm Injury Dashboard provides an interactive visual presentation of non-fatal firearm injuries in Utah. This data is from syndromic surveillance data, which gathers data from patients’ symptoms before clinical confirmation. 

The year range used is 2019-2022. To filter by age group and sex, select the desired criteria and the graphic will adjust. To revert to the default of both sexes and all age groups, click the filter button in the top right corner of the box and unselect the filtered criteria. Firearm injuries for the Firearm Injuries by Age and Sex tab is overall firearm injuries. 

Rates are computed for firearm injuries per 100,000 population. Population estimates for 2022 data used 2021 estimates, as this was the most recent year available. 

San Juan local health district was suppressed in the LHD tabs due to small counts.

Interpretation

Firearm injuries for all firearm types decreased from 2021 to 2022. Males experienced consistently higher firearm rates compared to females, with the highest rates in the 15-24 age group in 2020. The highest overall firearm injury rate in 2019-2022 was in TriCounty local health district and the highest unintentional firearm injury rate in 2019-2022 was in Southeast Utah local health district.

Limitations

  1. The quality of data has improved over time as national standards and definitions now specify what information hospitals should provide. Also there has been onboarding of new hospitals over time. Changes in data quality should be taken into consideration when interpreting trends across years.
  1. Results do not include visits with incorrectly coded chief complaints or discharge code.
  1. An individual could have more than one emergency department visit.
  1. Data from this system are pre-diagnostic and are meant to increase timeliness of public health response opportunities.