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. 2025 Aug 8;12(1):48.
doi: 10.1186/s40621-025-00590-0.

Epidemiology of fatal and nonfatal community firearm violence in New York City, 2019-2023

Loren L Adams  1 , Vanya Jones  2 , Daniel W Webster  2 , Michael R Desjardins  2   3 , Cassandra K Crifasi  2
Affiliations

Epidemiology of fatal and nonfatal community firearm violence in New York City, 2019-2023

Loren L Adams et al. Inj Epidemiol. .

Abstract

Background: Endemic levels of community firearm violence in United States cities disproportionately burden certain sociodemographic groups. Nonfatal injuries are an understudied aspect of firearm violence. Police data in a large and heterogenous place like New York City (NYC) provide the unique opportunity to use a single data source to measure fatal and nonfatal community firearm violence.

Methods: The study analyzed epidemiologic trends in fatal and nonfatal community firearm violence using the publicly available New York Police Department (NYPD) Shooting Incident Dataset from 2019 to 2023. The analyses tabulated shooting victims by sociodemographic variables (age group, race and ethnicity, and sex) and case fatality rates, mapped shootings by census tract, and described social determinants of health (SDOH)-poverty, educational attainment, unemployment-in the census tracts where shootings occurred.

Results: From 2019 to 2023, the annual average number of shooting victims in NYC was 1,578. Shootings doubled from 2019 to 2020 though trended downward from 2021 to 2022 to 2023. Four out of five shootings were nonfatal. Males, people ages 18-24, and non-Hispanic Black people in NYC experienced the greatest proportion of shootings. Shootings coincided with census tracts also experiencing above median percentages of adverse SDOH (i.e., highest levels of unemployment, poverty, and low educational attainment).

Discussion: Nonfatal injuries are an important component of community firearm violence to monitor. The findings identify inequities in community firearm violence by sex, age group, and race and ethnicity in NYC. One contributor to racial inequities in violence is the impact of place-based SDOH in certain NYC neighborhoods.

Conclusions: This study leverages NYPD data to estimate the full magnitude of violence by tracking nonfatal in addition to fatal injuries. The study emphasizes the need for researchers to go beyond individual demography and better understand the place-based social determinants of firearm violence.

Keywords: Community firearm violence; Epidemiology; GIS; Mapping; Social determinants of health.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study was reviewed and determined to be not human subjects research by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Institutional Review Board. The approval form is available upon request. All methods were performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Consent for publication: Not applicable, although see ethical approval and consent to participate above. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Annual number of fatal and nonfatal shootings in NYC, 2019–2023 Data source: NYPD Shooting Incident Dataset [50]
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Number of fatal and nonfatal shooting victims in NYC, by census tract, 2019-2023. This figure illustrates the combined number of fatal and nonfatal shooting victims in NYC by census tract. The cut points in the legend are determined by jenks (natural breaks) classification scheme. Data source: NYPD Shooting Incident Dataset [50]
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Relationship between number of shootings and percentage unemployed in NYC, by census tract, 2019-2023. Bivariate choropleth map. Data sources: (1) Shootings: NYPD Shooting Incident Dataset, 2019-2023 [50], (2) Unemployment status (Unemployed population ages ≥ 16 years in the civilian labor force): U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, 5-year estimates (2019-2023) [57]. Mean shootings = 4; median unemployment = 6.8%. Census tracts with missing data (n=89) are white on the map
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Relationship between number of shootings and percentage living below poverty level in NYC, by census tract, 2019-2023. Bivariate choropleth map. Data sources: (1) Shootings: NYPD Shooting Incident Dataset, 2019-2023 [50], (2) Poverty (people of all ages living below 150% the federal poverty level: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, 5-year estimates (2019-2023) [57]. Mean shootings = 4; median poverty = 22.1%. Census tracts with missing data (n=88) are white on the map
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Relationship between number of shootings and percentage without diploma in NYC, by census tract, 2019-2023. Bivariate choropleth map. Data sources: (1) Shootings: NYPD Shooting Incident Dataset, 2019-2023 [50], (2) Low educational attainment (No high school diploma among adults ages ≥ 25 years): U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, 5-year estimates (2019-2023) [57]. Mean shootings = 4; median low educational attainment = 14.7%. Census tracts with missing data (n=84) are white on the map
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