Firearm Injury Surveillance Study, 2022

These data were collected using the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS),
the primary data system of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). CPSC
began operating NEISS in 1972 to monitor product-related injuries treated in United States
hospital emergency departments (EDs). In June 1992, the National Center for Injury Prevention
and Control (NCIPC), within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, established an
interagency agreement with CPSC to begin collecting data on nonfatal firearm-related injuries
in order to monitor the incidents and the characteristics of persons with nonfatal firearm-related
injuries treated in United States hospital EDs over time. This dataset represents all nonfatal
firearm-related injuries (i.e., injuries associated with powder-charged guns) and all nonfatal
BB and pellet gun-related injuries reported through NEISS from YYYY. The cases
consist of initial ED visits for treatment of the injuries.

The NEISS-FISS is designed to provide national incidence estimates of nonfatal firearm injuries
treated in U.S. hospital EDs. Data on injury-related visits are obtained from a national sample of
NEISS hospitals, which were selected as a stratified probability sample of hospitals in the United
States and its territories with a minimum of six beds and a 24- hour ED. The sample includes separate
strata for very large, large, medium, and small hospitals, defined by the number of annual ED visits
per hospital, and children's hospitals. The scope of reporting goes beyond routine reporting of injuries
associated with consumer- related products in CPSC's jurisdiction to include all firearm injuries. The
data can be used to (1) measure the magnitude and distribution of nonfatal firearm injuries in the
United States; (2) monitor unintentional and violence-related nonfatal firearm injuries over time;
(3) identify emerging injury problems; (4) identify specific cases for follow-up investigations of
particular injury-related problems; and (5) set national priorities. A fundamental principle of this
expansion effort is that preliminary surveillance data will be made available in a timely manner to a
number of different federal agencies with unique and overlapping public health responsibilities and
concerns. The final edited data will be released annually as public use data files for use by other
public health professionals and researchers.

These public use data files provide NEISS-FISS data on nonfatal injuries collected from January through
December each year.

NEISS-FISS is providing data on over 100,000 estimated cases annually. Data obtained on each case
include age, race/ethnicity, sex, principal diagnosis, primary body part affected, consumer products
involved, disposition at ED discharge (i.e., hospitalized, transferred, treated and released,
observation, died), locale where the injury occurred, work-relatedness, and a narrative description of the
injury circumstances. Also, intent of injury (e.g., unintentional, assault, self-harm, legal intervention)
are being coded for each case in a manner consistent with the International Classification of Diseases,
Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) coding rules and guidelines.

Users are cautioned against using estimates with wide confidence intervals to make conclusions about point
estimates. Firearm injuries have distinct geographic patterns and estimates can be imprecise or change over time
when based on a small number of facilities.

NEISS has been managed and operated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission since 1972 and is used
by the Commission for identifying and monitoring consumer product-related injuries and for assessing risk to
all U.S. residents. These product- related injury data are used for educating consumers about hazardous products and for identifying injury-related cases used in detailed studies of specific products and associated hazard patterns. These studies set the stage for developing both voluntary and mandatory safety standards.

Since the early 1980s, CPSC has assisted other federal agencies by using NEISS to collect injury- related
data of special interest to them. In 1992, an interagency agreement was established between NCIPC and CPSC to
(1) collect NEISS data on nonfatal firearm- related injuries for the CDC Firearm Injury Surveillance Study;
(2) publish NEISS data on a variety of injury-related topics, such as in- line skating, firearms, BB and
pellet guns, bicycles, boat propellers, personal water craft, and playground injuries; and (3) to address
common concerns. CPSC also uses NEISS to collect data on work-related injuries for the National Institute
of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), CDC.

In July 2000, NCIPC, in collaboration with CPSC, expanded NEISS to collect data on all types and causes of
injuries treated in a representative sample of hospitals. This system is called the "NEISS All-Injury Program
(NEISS-AIP)". These data provide the basis for national estimates of all types of nonfatal injuries treated
in hospital emergency departments in the United States.

Beginning in 2019, CPSC initiated a redesign of the NEISS sample to update the sampling frame. The redesign
includes adding and replacing hospitals. The redesign includes a resample based on more recent hospital
information from the American Hospital Association, including the list of hospitals by hospital type. The
prior sample was drawn in 1997. The NEISS sample goal is 100 hospitals; hospital recruitment and onboarding
are ongoing. CDC and CPSC are continuing to release injury data while the onboarding is underway.