May 22, 2020

Collateral Crises of Gun Preparation and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Infodemiology Study

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Public Health Policy and Practice

• Caputi et al. used an autoregressive integrated moving average model fit to Google search data from January 2004 to the week that COVID-19 was declared an emergency to predict the expected number of gun preparation searches that would have occurred in the absence of the COVID-19 pandemic. They found a 158% (95%CI 73 to 270%) increase over what was expected during a 34-day period, and a 40% increase over previous spikes following the Sandy Hook, CT and Parkland, FL shootings. The increase in searches was higher in states with greater COVID-19 impacts.   

Caputi et al. (May 15, 2020). Collateral Crises of Gun Preparation and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Infodemiology Study. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance. https://doi.org/10.2196/19369