MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Bindu Kalesan PhD MPH Director Evan’s Center for Translational Epidemiology and Comparative Effectiveness Research Assistant Professor of Medicine Preventive Medicine & Epidemiology Department of Medicine Boston University School of Medicine Boston, MA 02118  Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Kalesan: Firearm injuries are one of the 3 major causes of death in children in the US. for every 7 pediatric firearm deaths there are 8 children non-fatally injured by a gun. Those that survive will live with disability and severe morbidity. From our earlier studies, we found that this burden of survivorship and injury is different according to race/ethnicity. There is also evidence that Injury related hospitalizations are also associated low-income households and neighborhoods. In the background of gun (violence) control, frequently comparisons are drawn between firearm injuries and motor vehicle accidents. In this study we use nationally representative hospitalization data and compared pediatric firearm-related hospitalization and pedestrian motor vehicle accident hospitalizations to assess whether the risk of firearm related hospitalizations among minorities varies depending on the neighborhood they live. We found that black children were at substantially greater risk of firearm hospitalization as compared to pedestrian motor vehicle hospitalization. This greater risk of firearm hospitalization among black children persisted across neighborhoods. Simply put, the risk of firearm hospitalization versus pedestrian motor vehicle hospitalization among black children was high, regardless of whether they lived in low income or high income neighborhoods.We also found that all minority race children (black, Hispanic and other race) as compared to white children were at a greater likelihood of homicide-firearm hospitalization than of pedestrian motor vehicle hospitalization and all minority race children were significantly less likely to be hospitalized for unintentional firearm than pedestrian injuries in comparison to white children. Therefore, overall we found a minority race disadvantage regardless of whether they lived in high and low-income neighborhoods. (more…)