Firearms and Suicide Overview Bibliography

Brent DA. Firearms and suicide. Ann NY Acad Sci. 2001; 932:225-39.

Brent DA, Bridge J. Firearms Availability and Suicide: Evidence, interventions, and future directions. American Behavioral Scientist. 2003;Vol. 46(9):1192-1210.

Cummings P, Koepsell TD. Does owning a firearm increase or decrease the risk of death? JAMA. 1998 Aug 5;280(5):471-3.

Johnson RM, Coyne-Beasley T.  Lethal means reduction: what have we learned? Current Opinion in Pediatrics. 2009; 21: 635–640.

  • This review article provides evidence regarding lethal means reduction as a suicide prevention strategy, especially through initiatives that reduce access to lethal means.

Florentine JB, Crane C. Suicide prevention by limiting access to methods: a review of theory and practice. Soc. Sci. Med. 2010; 70:1626–32.

Miller M, Azrael D, Barber C. Suicide mortality in the United States: The importance of attending to method in understanding population-level disparities in the burden of suicide. Annual Review of Public Health. 2012; 33:393-408.

  • This literature review examines the evidence that the proportion of all suicide attempts ending in a completed suicide (the case fatality ratio) accounts for a major portion of the variation in suicide mortality. In the US, the case fatality rate is strongly related to the prevalence of household firearms. Over twenty years of ecologic and individual-level studies support the hypothesis that reducing access to lethal means is an effective suicide prevention strategy.

Miller M, and Hemenway D. Gun prevalence and the risk of suicide: A review. Harvard Health Policy Review. 2001; 2:29-37.

Miller M, and Hemenway D. The relationship between firearms and suicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior. 1999; 4(1):59-75.

  • This article provides a detailed review of the most commonly cited, representative and thorough empirical studies relating to firearms and suicide, focused largely on the United States.

Sarchiapone M, Mandelli L, Iosue M, Andrisano C, Roy A. Controlling access to suicide means. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2011;8(12):4550-62.

Yoder Slater G. The Missing Piece: A Sociological Autopsy of Firearm Suicide in the United States. SLTB 2011; 41(5):474–490.