# RFA-CE-23-006, Leveraging Individual-Level Data to Evaluate Policies Targeting Acute Risk Periods for Firearm Violence: Extreme Risk Protective Orders and Waiting Periods in California

> **NIH ALLCDC R01** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2024 · $315,340

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Many firearm deaths, including suicides and homicide deaths from intrahousehold violence, occur during acute
risk periods. As such, some suicide and violence prevention strategies focus on reducing firearm access at
heightened risk periods, including preemptively and temporarily removing firearms by applying Extreme Risk
Protection Order (ERPO) laws, and deferring firearm access using mandatory waiting period laws. Though
both types of policies have some, albeit mixed, empirical support, the prior ecologic studies do not allow for a
detailed understanding of whose deaths are being prevented (e.g., the gun owner, cohabitants, or other
community members) and when potentially preventable deaths are occurring. Filling these critical gaps
requires longitudinal, individual-level data. The ultimate objective of this work is to rigorously quantify the
effects of ERPO and waiting period laws on mortality risk among handgun owners and their cohabitants.
Specifically, using the Longitudinal Study of Handgun Ownership and Transfers (LongSHOT), an already-
assembled multi-decade cohort of over 25 million adults in California (2004-2021), the proposed work aims to
estimate the effects of California's ERPO law on risk of suicide among handgun owners (Aim 1), and on risk of
homicide among cohabitants of handgun owners (Aim 2). Further, the proposed work responds to a common
but unexamined critique of waiting periods – the possibility that first-time gun owners will be unable to protect
themselves or family members from imminent threat during the waiting period – by estimating the risk of
homicide during California's mandatory 10-day waiting period among new handgun purchasers and their
cohabitants (Aim 3). By contributing this empirical basis for understanding the effects of ERPO and waiting
period policies, this work will directly support the purpose of RFA-CE-23-006 (“to rigorously evaluate the
effectiveness of innovative and promising strategies to keep individuals, families, schools, and communities
safe from firearm-related injuries, deaths, and crime”) using existing data sources under Funding Option A.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10903708
- **Project number:** 5R01CE003630-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** SONJA ALSEMGEEST SWANSON
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $315,340
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-30 → 2025-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10903708

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10903708, RFA-CE-23-006, Leveraging Individual-Level Data to Evaluate Policies Targeting Acute Risk Periods for Firearm Violence: Extreme Risk Protective Orders and Waiting Periods in California (5R01CE003630-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10903708. Licensed CC0.

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