Rushing Gunshot Victims to Trauma Care: The Influence of First Responders and the Challenge of the Geography

Abstract

Past research exploring correlates to gunshot wound fatality have focused on the distance between the victim/incident location and trauma care facilities. Far less is known regarding the role of first responders in linking individuals to trauma care services. This study introduces a new method for measuring proximity to trauma care services and first responder locations, using the STATA OSRMTIME package to assess this relationship. A positive and significant relationship was found between travel time, measured in minutes, from first responder locations and the likelihood of gunshot fatality, controlling for age, race, sex, and, injury severity.

Keywords

spatial disparities trauma care gunshot wound geographic proximity first responders

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