PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Evan V. Goldstein
AU  - Laura C. Prater
AU  - Seuli Bose-Brill
AU  - Thomas M. Wickizer
TI  - The Firearm Suicide Crisis: Physicians Can Make a Difference
AID  - 10.1370/afm.2522
DP  - 2020 May 01
TA  - The Annals of Family Medicine
PG  - 265--268
VI  - 18
IP  - 3
4099  - http://www.annfammed.org/content/18/3/265.short
4100  - http://www.annfammed.org/content/18/3/265.full
SO  - Ann Fam Med2020 May 01; 18
AB  - Firearm suicide receives relatively little public attention in the United States, however, the United States is in the midst of a firearm suicide crisis. Most suicides are completed using a firearm. The age-adjusted firearm suicide rate increased 22.6% from 2005 to 2017, and globally the US firearm suicide rate is 8 times higher than the average firearm suicide rate of 22 other developed countries. The debate over how to solve the firearm suicide epidemic tends to focus on reducing the firearm supply or increasing access to behavioral health treatment. Ineffectual federal firearm control policies and inadequate behavioral health treatment access has heightened the need for primary care physicians to play a more meaningful role in firearm suicide prevention. We offer suggestions for how individual physicians and the collective medical community can take action to reduce mortality arising from firearm suicide and firearm deaths.