Firearm Injury Center Releases Stats on Violent Deaths in Wisconsin

In terms of violent death, Wisconsin residents are their own worst enemies. In the year 2000, suicides outnumbered homicides by three to one in the state, where every week an average of 16 people lose their lives to either suicide or homicide. Fifty-two percent of the Wisconsin suicides were by firearm, and nearly 40% of the victims had told someone they intended to kill themselves.

This year, information on the state’s non-firearm violent deaths was also made available in March, when the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Firearm Injury Center released the nation’s first statewide statistical report of its kind on all violent fatalities in Wisconsin for the year 2000. These include all homicides and suicides, regardless of method or weapon. The new, expanded report reveals that one in 5 of the suicides in Wisconsin were the result of poisoning, the largest proportion of which were carbon monoxide or other gas or vapor. Another 19% of Wisconsin suicides occurred by hanging, suffocation or strangulation.

The report characterizes the nature and scope of violent injuries in Wisconsin, which resulted in over $57 million in hospital charges in 2000, according to FIC director Stephen Hargarten, MD, MPH, Chairman and Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College. “It is also serving as a pilot program model for the Center for Disease Control’s new National Violent Death Reporting System,” Dr. Hargarten says.

Dr. Hargarten founded the Center, based in the department of emergency medicine, with support from the Joyce Foundation, in 1997. Richard L. Withers, JD serves as the Center’s co-director.

According to Dr. Hargarten, the Center has the most comprehensive system of linked data on firearm fatalities in the United States. It links vital statistics such as age, race and sex, with law enforcement and crime laboratory data on all Wisconsin fatalities.

The 2000 Statistical Report debuted at the fourth annual meeting of the Firearm Injury Center, which took place March 21 at the Medical College. New Zealander Philip Alpers, journalist and Senior Fellow, Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Harvard School of Public Health, gave the keynote presentation at the meeting. The Firearm Injury Center is a collaborative partner with Harvard in the development of the data elements and training manual for the National Violent Death Reporting System, and Alpers offered his perspective on the FIC’s international role in developing these systems.

The 2000 Report reveals that Wisconsin had a total of 178 homicides and 592 suicides for the year. Based on final 1999 data from the National Center for Health Statistics, Wisconsin ranked 29th for suicide rates and 31st in the nation in homicide. Overall rates of firearm homicide (2.3 per 100,000) and suicide (5.7 per 100,000) were lower than the national rates (3.8 and 6.0, respectively). Similar to national experience however, firearms were used in more than two-thirds of the homicides and half of the suicides.

Data from the Wisconsin Report include the following:

• The Northern Public Health Region of Wisconsin (Ashland, Bayfield, Florence, Forest, Iron, Landglade, Lincoln, Marathon, Oneida, Price, Portage, Sawyer, Taylor, Vilas and Wood counties) had the highest rate of firearm suicide (8.5 per 100,000).
• The Southeastern Region (Jefferson, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Racine, Walworth, Washington and Waukesha counties) had the highest rate of firearm homicide (5.2 per 100,000).
• Wisconsin’s firearm homicide rate among black males was ten times higher than black females and 37 times higher than white males.
• Two-thirds of juvenile firearm homicides in Wisconsin occurred between January and March.
• The percent of large caliber homicide handguns used in Milwaukee County was the lowest since 1995: the percent of medium caliber was the highest since at least 1991.

MCW Health News presents up-to-date information on patient care and medical research by the physicians of the Medical College of Wisconsin.