Nicole Snyder, PhD, and Lucas Neuroth, MPH, Present Findings at National Research Conference for Prevention of Firearm-Related Harms

Their research focuses on prevention policies, strategies and means of assessing relative risk.

The two researchers are affiliated with the Carolina Center for Health Informatics (CCHI), within the UNC Department of Emergency Medicine.

Their presentations at the annual meeting focused on two important topics:

• Nicole Snyder, PhD, a Research Specialist in Emergency Medicine and formerly a Graduate Research Assistant with CCHI, presented a poster entitled:
  • “Examining demographic trends in North Carolina EMS firearm injury data / Evaluating a firearm injury definition for EMS data.” (Link to Poster)   
    • Conclusions: Our results can support targeted prevention strategies and policies to reduce firearm-related injuries and deaths across NC. Next steps include refining our EMS firearm injury definition to reduce false positives and linking EMS data to ED visit data to compare intent classifications and analyze health outcomes.   
• Lucas Neuroth, MPH, a PhD student in Epidemiology and Graduate Research Assistant with CCHI, presented an oral paper entitled:
  • “Racial differences in prior-year emergency department utilization among firearm injury patients: North Carolina, 2018-2021 (Link to Abstract)
    • Conclusions: Almost 14,000 North Carolinians presented to an ED for a firearm-related injury from 2019-2021. Approximately 11-29% of those with a firearm-related ED visit had a visit to that same ED in the year prior to their injury. Prior-year ED visits provide potential opportunities for prevention, particularly among those who previously sustained firearm-related injuries. Further investigation of these prior-year ED visits may provide insight into factors related to repeat-firearm injury and firearm-related injury disparities.

We invite you to learn more about the UNC Department of Emergency Medicine’s Research Program via this link.