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Gun violence has increased in Mexico since the mid-2000s, but little is known about patterns of gun ownership. We examine the size and composition of the privately held urban firearm stock in Mexico, motivations for ownership, and attitudes about gun laws. To this end, a household telephone survey of 1361 adults living in nine Mexican cities was conducted in the summer of 2017. We find that few urban Mexican households contain guns. Most of those who report ownership possess one gun, having purchased it recently for self-defense. Few urban Mexican citizens plan to purchase a gun in the future. Respondents are more likely to believe that crime in Mexico would increase if guns were allowed in more places (ie, workplaces and motor vehicles). Evidence suggests urban Mexico has relative low rates of firearm ownership. Few city dwellers plan on obtaining a firearm in the near future.

IntroductionFirearm safety instructors and public health professionals are natural allies in the quest to prevent firearm injuries. We audited basic firearm classes to provide information that can help familiarise public health professionals and others with the content covered.MethodsWith the advice of expert instructors, we created an audit form. Volunteers audited 20 basic firearm classes in seven north-eastern states.ResultsAll trainers covered a wide variety of safety issues. Some specific basics were covered in 90+% of the classes, including how to safely load/unload a gun, keeping your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot, and being aware of your target and what is behind it. In 50%–75% of the classes, the trainer covered topics such as operating a safety, clearing jams and cartridge malfunctions, and recommended storing guns unloaded and locked when not in use. Few instructors covered firearm suicide prevention (10%) or domestic violence (10%). Most encouraged gun ownership, gun carrying, gun use in self-defence and membership in a gun rights group.DiscussionFrom a public health standpoint, we would like to see more instructors covering topics such as firearm suicide and alternatives to gun use in self-defence, and to recommend safer storage of firearms.

It is difficult to find classroom exercises that have been specifically designed for injury prevention students. The suggested list-making classroom exercise forces students to recognise and devise many policy and programmatic options over and above the ones that normally spring to mind. Most important, it helps give students a better understanding of what is meant by, and the potential usefulness of, the public health approach to injury prevention.

BackgroundFor cities aiming to create a useful surveillance system for bicycle injuries, a common challenge is that city crash reporting is scattered, faulty or non-existent. We document some of the lessons we learnt in helping the city of Boston, Massachusetts, USA, do the following: (1) Create a prototype for a comprehensive police crash data set (2) Produce the city’s first cyclist safety report, (3) Make crash data available to the public and (4) Generate policy recommendations for both specific roadside improvements and for sustainable changes to the police department’s crash reporting database.MethodsWe provided research and technical assistance to government partners to generate the report and used participant-observation field notes to generate the list of learnt lessons.ResultsAfter the release of the report, the city implemented immediate activities aimed at making an effort to prevent injuries, including: (1) Furnishing over 1800 taxis with stickers to prevent ‘dooring,’ (2) Adding pavement markings at trolley tracks to decrease the likelihood that cyclists would fall from getting their wheels lodged in the tracks, (3) Conducting targeted enforcement of traffic laws and (4) Working directly with state and federal agencies to fund a more comprehensive surveillance system. As of January of 2017, nearly 4 years after its public release, 19 170 users have viewed the crash data set 23 247 times. Some of the lessons include finding and using committed champions, prioritising the use of existing data, creating opportunities to bridge divisions between stakeholders, partnering with local universities for assistance with advanced analytics and using deliverables, such as a cyclist safety report, to advocate for sustainability.ConclusionProviding an initial report on bicycle crashes in Boston served to identify specific problems, showed the value of a data system, and provided a blueprint for an improved data system. Building a useful surveillance system depends in no small part on the wise use of advocacy, group dynamics, and politics. Our hope is that the lessons learnt from our experience in Boston can help others do even better.

IntroductionInjury-related morbidity is a neglected health concern in many low-income and middle-income countries. Most injury data in Africa have been collected from hospital-based studies, and few studies have occurred across multiple countries. Using data from a novel cohort, we examined the prevalence and incidence of serious injuries and associated risk factors across five sites in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).MethodsA common baseline and follow-up survey was administered to participants. The study population included 1316 persons at baseline and 904 persons at follow-up. Frequencies were calculated, and logistic regression models were used to assess risk factors for injury.ResultsA total of 233 (17.7%) persons reported a serious injury at baseline and 60 (6.6%) reported a serious injury 6 months later at follow-up. Sixty-nine per cent of participants responded to the follow-up questionnaire. At baseline and follow-up, the most common cause of serious injury at urban sites was transport related, followed by poison/overdose. In rural Uganda, sharp instruments injuries were most common, followed by transport-related injuries. Living at an urban site was associated with an increased odds for serious injury compared with those at the rural site (OR: 1.83, 95% CI 1.15 to 2.90). Participants who consumed above a moderate amount of alcohol were at a higher risk of serious injury compared with those who did not consume alcohol (OR: 1.86, 95% CI 1.02 to 3.41). High level of education was an important risk factor for injury.ConclusionAt baseline and follow-up, common causes of serious injury were transport related, sharp instrument and poison/overdose. Alcohol consumption, urban location and education are important risk factors for injury. It is feasible to collect longitudinal injury data using a standardised questionnaire across multiples sites in SSA. Longitudinal data collection should be leveraged to obtain robust data on risk factors for injury in SSA.

ObjectiveOne way that guns get into the wrong hands is via gun sales without a background check. While the large majority of Americans support laws requiring universal background checks, no prior study has assessed whether Americans think it is acceptable behaviour to sell a gun to a stranger without a background check, whether or not there is a law against it.MethodsWe sponsored a nationally representative survey of over 3900 American adults, oversampling gun owners, using an online panel provided by the survey firm Growth for Knowledge.ResultsOver 72% of American adults agree or strongly agree with the statement that ‘whether it is legal or not, it is NOT acceptable to sell a gun to a stranger without a background check’ and 11% disagree or strongly disagree. Subgroups less likely to agree are young adults, men, conservatives, those with less than a high school education and gun owners.ConclusionReducing the number of guns sold without a background check could help reduce the flow of guns to felons. Changes in normative attitudes and behaviours, as well as changes in law, could help accomplish this goal. Most Americans, including gun owners, believe selling a gun to a stranger without a background check is not acceptable behaviour.

IntroductionNo one has systematically collected the views of firearm researchers to determine if and where agreement exists on the scientific evidence about firearms and firearm violence.MethodsWe send a short monthly on-line survey to firearm researchers. Each survey asks respondents their level of agreement with a statement about firearms, their rating of the quality of the scientific evidence on the specific issue, their familiarity with that literature and their area of expertise. Survey participants are first-authors of a firearms article published in a peer-reviewed journal since 2011. For the first 15 surveys, on average, surveys were sent to 322 researchers, and 109 researchers responded (34% response rate).ResultsAmong respondents, approximately 46% were public health researchers and 32% were sociologists/criminologists. Agreement exists among firearm researchers that more guns and weaker gun laws cause serious public health problems, that the costs of gun availability are typically greater than the benefits and that stronger gun laws may improve public safety and health. 84% of researchers agreed, and only 8% disagreed with the statement ‘in the United States, having a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide’. For only three statements did most respondents rate the quality of the scientific evidence as strong or very strong. Overall, there was a higher level of agreement among public health/medicine researchers than among researchers in the other disciplines.DiscussionSurveys of researchers can provide useful information about agreement on specific issues and about the quality of the scientific evidence.