Temporal trend of research related to gun violence from 1981 to 2018 in the United States: a bibliometric analysis

Lung-Chang Chien,Maxim Gakh,Ro-Ting Lin,Courtney Coughenour

doi:10.1186/s40621-020-0235-6

Lung-Chang Chien, Maxim Gakh + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-020-0235-6

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Abstract

BackgroundWe aimed to evaluate the variation in gun violence-related research in the US over time to determine if there are meaningful changes in frequency of research at certain time points. Related publications were searched from the Web of Science.MethodsWe searched articles from Web of Science to collect publication data of gun violence research in three disciplines (clinical sciences, life sciences, and social behavior sciences) from 1981 to 2018. The joinpoint regression approach was applied to evaluate the trend of publication ratio. We also adopted the generalized additive mixed model to compare the publication ratio among the three research disciplines.ResultsDuring the study period, each research discipline had a significant decrease in publication ratios, especially social behavioral sciences from 2001 to 2011, with an annual percentage change = − 9.77% (95% CI = − 13.45, − 5.93; p-value < .0001). After combining the three research disciplines, the average change of the publication ratio was significantly increased 9.18% (95% CI = 6.42, 12.01; p-value < .0001) per year from 1981 to 2018. Compared to social behavioral sciences, both clinical sciences and life sciences had a significantly smaller publication ratio.ConclusionsGun violence research exhibited a significant downward trend in publications in the early 2000s, which may be attributed at least in part to limited federal funding, but the publication ratio increased since the 2010s. To enhance the amount of peer-reviewed gun violence research so that research-informed gun violence interventions are more likely to succeed, decision-makers should keep supporting quality research.

Highlights

We aimed to evaluate the variation in gun violence-related research in the US over time to determine if there are meaningful changes in frequency of research at certain time points
Both clinical sciences and social behavioral sciences had the best model with three joinpoints, where their smallest Bayesian information criterion (BIC) was 0.40 and 1.05, respectively
Considering the combination of the three research disciplines, the model with two joinpoints was determined the best model with the smallest BIC = 1.45

Summary

Introduction

We aimed to evaluate the variation in gun violence-related research in the US over time to determine if there are meaningful changes in frequency of research at certain time points. Firearm ownership has been associated with increased rates of intentional and unintentional firearm deaths. Access and storage practices are a risk factor for suicide (Brent et al 1993; Brent et al 1991; Cummings et al 1997; Bukstein et al 1993; Kellermann et al 1992; Grossman et al 2005; Miller et al 2002). A metaanalysis of 16 observational studies concluded that access to firearms is associated with risk for completed suicide and being the victim of homicide (Anglemyer et al 2014). Various studies have linked firearm access to unintentional firearm deaths, among youth (Miller et al 2002; Grossman et al 1999; Levine and McKnight 2017)

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