# Building Research Capacity for Firearm Safety Among Children

> **NIH NIH R24** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2021 · $1,021,671

## Abstract

Among U.S. children, firearm-related fatalities are the 2nd leading cause of death and include the unintentional,
accidental discharge of a firearm by a toddler with a playmate, the use of a firearm to self-inflict harm by a
suicidal teen, and the escalation of bullying or dating violence to lethal means by an adolescent. Substantial
disparities exist in firearm-related injuries, with African-American children disproportionally impacted by
unintentional and assaultive firearm injury, and rural youth disproportionately dying of suicide by firearm.
Childhood firearm injury rates have remained unchanged in the recent decades despite significant reductions
in non-firearm fatal injuries due to an approach that includes improved epidemiologic data, behavior
modifications, and technological solutions. In contrast, research funding and publications for firearm injury have
lagged, leading to a current deficit of both established and developing researchers, as well as a lack of pilot
work and literature needed to support large scale studies. A 2013 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report detailed
the urgent need for novel and innovative research to address this deficit, however, was primarily focused on
adult populations. This proposal builds on these IOM recommendations and utilizes multidisciplinary research
expertise across the U.S., as well as stakeholder partner groups of gun owners, to catalyze the science of
childhood firearm injury prevention with the overarching goal of reducing firearm injuries among children while
also respecting gun ownership as an important part of the cultural fabric of US society. Our specific aims are:
Aim #1: Create a multidisciplinary team of researchers and stakeholder partners to define a pediatric-specific
firearm injury research agenda for the five workgroups; Aim #2: Stimulate novel firearm prevention research by
having workgroups conduct pilot studies that address key research questions identified in Aim 1, to provide
preliminary data that informs large-scale studies; Aim #3: Improve access to and use of national firearm data
and ease future secondary analyses by: 1) Establishing a web-based searchable data archive for childhood
firearm injury that is enabled with variable-level searching and cross-study comparisons; and, 2) Enhancing
and improving pediatric firearm injury data collection in existing pediatric datasets such as the PECARN core
data project and the PECARN registry database; Aim #4: Build a cadre of national research scholars with
multidisciplinary training and expertise that will serve as an emerging pipeline for future research. Expected
outcomes of this five-year grant will be to create six research resources: 1) consensus documents detailing
the state of the science and key research questions for pediatric firearm injury prevention; 2) pilot data to
support five large-scale research proposals; 3) a web-based data archive and searchable research repository
on childhood firearm injury; 4) enhanced data co...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10242758
- **Project number:** 5R24HD087149-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** REBECCA M. CUNNINGHAM
- **Activity code:** R24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $1,021,671
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-05 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10242758

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10242758, Building Research Capacity for Firearm Safety Among Children (5R24HD087149-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10242758. Licensed CC0.

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