For Dr. Ruchika Goel, concern over increasing gun violence is personal.

“Everyone’s aware of the increased number of school shootings it’s becoming increasingly common and as a mom of twin daughters, you know, it is something that does instill a fear in you every time you hear about it,” said Dr. Goel.

The doctor said anxiety over active shooter drills and school safety inspired her research on how guns impact children. Last month she released a paper titled “Pediatric firearm injury related emergency department visits and hospitalizations: a population-based study in the United States.”

According to our news partners at WAND TV, that research found that nearly 10,000 hospitalizations of people 17 years-old or younger occurred in one year.

“It’s a very sobering and fearsome statistic that in 2020, the number one cause of death in American children became firearm injury,” said Dr. Goel. “It is not cancer, it is not any chronic disease, not any infection, it’s not motor-vehicle accidents. It’s something which is so gruesome, and, you know, completely avoidable.”

Of these hospitalizations, 50% were caused by accidental injuries, 40% were assault-related, and 6% were self-inflicted, according to Dr. Goel. The research team also found a difference in causes for hospitalization based on demographic factors.

“Children who belong to low household income zip codes, children who are black, as well as those without any insurance coverage, they do tend to stand out as being affected with accidents as well as assaults,” said Dr. Goel. “In contrast, we observed that white children were identified more with self-inflicted injuries. There are clearly very striking disparities as far as racial and socio-economic backgrounds go.”

Dr. Goel is a hematologist oncologist in the department of internal medicine at the Simmons Cancer Institute at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. She is also an adjunct Faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.