“A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words”: Improving Access to Firearm Injury and Death Data
Abstract
Introduction: Violent death (i.e., homicides, suicides, and legal interventions) and injury are the top 10 leading causes of death in Georgia. Of the 2,862 violent deaths among Georgians in 2021, approximately 71% involved a firearm. Emergency department data indicates that for every firearm-related death, 3 non-fatal firearm injuries occur. An increased need for violent injury and death data led to the creation of multiple data visualization tools to enhance the use of surveillance data as a resource for community-level intervention and prevention and creating violence prevention policies. Methods: The Georgia Violent Death Reporting System (GA-VDRS) and the Georgia Firearm Surveillance Through Emergency Rooms: Georgia’s Approach (FASTER-GA) leveraged their respective data using Tableau (v2021.4.23) and ArcGIS (v3.1.3) to construct public-facing visualization tools. These tools were made accessible through the official Georgia Department of Public Health website to analyze and download data elements by year, public health district, and demographics. Additionally, bivariate choropleth maps were created to visualize the overlap between homicides (GA-VDRS) or firearm injuries (FASTER-GA) and the CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) at the community level. Results: The statewide public-facing data dashboards were released in February 2023, with more than 1,000 impressions to date, can be accessed through https://dph.georgia.gov/GVDRS for GA-VDRS. An additional dashboard focused on the City of Atlanta demonstrates data that can be filtered by relevant community planning areas such as Atlanta neighborhood planning units (NPU), thus identifying highly vulnerable communities that are burdened by violence. The FASTER-GA can be accessed from https://dph.georgia.gov/faster-ga. Conclusions: These tools serve as a resource to empower partners such as healthcare and injury control professionals, policy makers, and community organizers to identify, implement, and evaluate evidence-based intervention programs across the state.
Keywords
Data, visualization, informatics, violent death, firearm injury, social vulnerability, health equity
“A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words”: Improving Access to Firearm Injury and Death Data
Introduction: Violent death (i.e., homicides, suicides, and legal interventions) and injury are the top 10 leading causes of death in Georgia. Of the 2,862 violent deaths among Georgians in 2021, approximately 71% involved a firearm. Emergency department data indicates that for every firearm-related death, 3 non-fatal firearm injuries occur. An increased need for violent injury and death data led to the creation of multiple data visualization tools to enhance the use of surveillance data as a resource for community-level intervention and prevention and creating violence prevention policies. Methods: The Georgia Violent Death Reporting System (GA-VDRS) and the Georgia Firearm Surveillance Through Emergency Rooms: Georgia’s Approach (FASTER-GA) leveraged their respective data using Tableau (v2021.4.23) and ArcGIS (v3.1.3) to construct public-facing visualization tools. These tools were made accessible through the official Georgia Department of Public Health website to analyze and download data elements by year, public health district, and demographics. Additionally, bivariate choropleth maps were created to visualize the overlap between homicides (GA-VDRS) or firearm injuries (FASTER-GA) and the CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) at the community level. Results: The statewide public-facing data dashboards were released in February 2023, with more than 1,000 impressions to date, can be accessed through https://dph.georgia.gov/GVDRS for GA-VDRS. An additional dashboard focused on the City of Atlanta demonstrates data that can be filtered by relevant community planning areas such as Atlanta neighborhood planning units (NPU), thus identifying highly vulnerable communities that are burdened by violence. The FASTER-GA can be accessed from https://dph.georgia.gov/faster-ga. Conclusions: These tools serve as a resource to empower partners such as healthcare and injury control professionals, policy makers, and community organizers to identify, implement, and evaluate evidence-based intervention programs across the state.
