Firearm-related research articles in health sciences by funding status and type: A scoping review

Sixtine Gurrey^{1

2}, Hasanah McCauley¹, Melanie Benson¹, Pavithra Prabhu¹, Mary D Fan^{1

3

2}, Frederick P Rivara^{1

2

4}, David Hemenway^{5

6}, Matthew Miller^{5

7}, Deborah Azrael^{5

6}, Ali Rowhani-Rahbar^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, 3980 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, USA.
² Firearm Injury and Policy Research Program, Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, University of Washington, 401 Broadway, Seattle, WA, USA.
³ School of Law, University of Washington, 4293 Memorial Way Northeast, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁴ Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Washington, 4245 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁵ Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, USA.
⁷ Department of Health Sciences, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, USA.

PMID: 34976661
PMCID: PMC8683892
DOI: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.101604

Firearm-related research articles in health sciences by funding status and type: A scoping review

Sixtine Gurrey et al. Prev Med Rep. 2021.

. 2021 Oct 18:24:101604.

doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.101604. eCollection 2021 Dec.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, 3980 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, USA.
² Firearm Injury and Policy Research Program, Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, University of Washington, 401 Broadway, Seattle, WA, USA.
³ School of Law, University of Washington, 4293 Memorial Way Northeast, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁴ Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Washington, 4245 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁵ Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, USA.
⁷ Department of Health Sciences, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, USA.

PMID: 34976661
PMCID: PMC8683892
DOI: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2021.101604

Abstract

Federal funding for firearm-related research in the health sciences has incurred Congressional restrictions and executive actions. Little is known about the funding landscape for published scholarship in this field. This study's aim was to characterize the number and sources of funding, including federal and non-federal sources, for firearm-related research articles published in health sciences journals. We performed a scoping review of original, empirical, peer-reviewed articles related to firearms published in health science journals and indexed in PubMed between January 2000 and December 2019, using the PRISMA extension for Scoping Review checklist. Four reviewers independently screened each article twice for inclusion. Included articles were reviewed again to identify funding sources. Articles were characterized as having explicitly declared funding, explicitly declared no funding, or no explicit funding declaration. Among articles with funding, we examined proportions by funding source. 812 articles met the inclusion criteria. 119 (14.7%) of the articles declared not having received any funding, and 240 (29.6%) had no funding declaration. 453 (55.8%) of the articles declared at least one source of funding. Of those, 221 (48.8%) reported at least one federal grant, and 232 (51.2%) reported at least one philanthropic grant. The number of published articles increased by 328.6% between 2000 and 2019. While the volume increased during the study period, the proportion of articles with funding was lower in 2019 (55.6%) than it was in 2000 (87.5%; proportion difference: 31.9%; 95% CI: 16.7%-47.2%). This study highlights the continued funding limitations in this field despite a growing volume of research.

Keywords: CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Firearms; Funding; Health sciences; Injury; NIH, National Institutes of Health; Violence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

**Fig. 1**
PRISMA extension for Scoping Review Flow Chart.

**Fig. 2**
Counts of firearm injury and violence research articles published in health sciences journals by funding status from 2000 through 2019.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Firearm-related research articles in health sciences by funding status and type: A scoping review

Affiliations

Firearm-related research articles in health sciences by funding status and type: A scoping review

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

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