Firearm injuries are a serious public health problem affecting people of all ages. Individual health effects include physical disability, mental health problems, and death. Firearm injuries also impact the well-being of family, friends, neighborhoods, and communities. The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) tracks emergency department (ED) visits for all types of firearm injuries. These can include self-harm, assault, or unintentional injuries. The data can be used by community groups, healthcare providers, law enforcement, and others working to prevent firearm injuries. Please consider syndromic surveillance data limitations when interpreting firearm injury ED data.
The dashboard below shows firearm injury visits among residents and out of state visitors to Virginia EDs. Use the filters on the right to view data by year, patient health district, and type of measure (ED visit counts or rates per 10,000 ED visits). Refer to the VDH Geography Locator Tool to find the health district for a city or county in Virginia. Firearm injury ED data by age group, race/ethnicity, sex, health district, and city/county are available for download.
This dashboard is updated by the 15th of each month. Data for the current year includes the most recent complete month.
View more data on the Firearm Injury in Virginia website.
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Download firearm injury ED data.
About the Data
VDH collects and analyzes health data from participating EDs in Virginia. All non-federal acute care hospitals and free-standing emergency care centers report ED visit data to VDH.
Data are for clinical care of patients in healthcare settings. Public health surveillance is a secondary use. When interpreting firearm injury ED data, please consider syndromic surveillance data limitations.
- Case Definition: Firearm injury visits are identified using key terms in the chief complaint (reason for visit) and discharge diagnosis codes.
- Key terms: gun with wound, GSW, gunshot, buckshot, revolver, rifle, shotgun, firearm, pistol, handgun, been shot, I was shot, I got shot, combination of hit, ricochet, graze with bullet.
- ICD-10 diagnosis codes: W32.0, W32.1, W33.0, W33.1, W34.0, W34.1, X72, X73, X74, X93, X94, X95, Y22, Y23, Y24, Y35.0, Y38.4
- SNOMED diagnosis codes: 41430008, 56768003, 63409001, 69861004, 77301004, 86122002, 111050005, 219257002, 283545005, 218081007, 218086002, 218082000, 218087006, 218088001, 269796009, 242869008, 219199009, 219200007, 219201006, 219204003, 219205002, 219203009, 219198001, 219142001, 219143006, 219144000, 219145004, 219146003, 287184008, 287193009
- Exclusions: follow-up visits, visits involving other types of guns (e.g., staple gun), visits where firearm was used as a weapon but not fired (e.g., pistol whip)
- Measures: ED visit counts and rates per 10,000 ED visits. Rates allow comparison over time and between different groups, such as age, race, sex, and geographic areas.
- Geography: VDH assigns city/county and health district using the patient’s residential zip code. The firearm injury data dashboard includes ED visit data for Virginia and non-Virginia residents. Out of state residents are not represented in the map. ED visit counts and rates are combined for certain cities and counties due to some zip codes spanning more than one locality.
- Suppression: VDH suppresses counts of 1 to 4 and rates with numerators of 1 to 4 to maintain confidentiality and accurate rate calculations. Suppressed statistics are indicated with an asterisk (*).
- Demographics: VDH reports firearm injury data using the following combined race/ethnicity categories:
- Asian or Pacific Islander – Non-Hispanic persons who identify as “Asian” or “Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander”
- Black or African American – Non-Hispanic persons who identify as “Black or African American”
- Latino – Individuals of any race who identify as “Hispanic or Latino”
- Native American – Non-Hispanic persons who identify as “American Indian or Alaska Native”
- White – Non-Hispanic persons who identify as “White” alone
- Other Race – Non-Hispanic persons who report “Other Race” alone