Key Points Question Can handgun purchasing records, coupled with machine learning techniques, be used to forecast firearm suicide risk? Findings In this prognostic study of nearly 2 million individuals with handgun transaction records, among transactions classified in the riskiest 5%, close to 40% were associated with a purchaser who died by firearm suicide within 1 year. Among the small number of transactions with a random forest score of 0.95 and above, more than two-thirds were affiliated with a purchaser who died by firearm suicide within 1 year (24 of 35). Meaning This study suggests that passively collected administrative data on handgun transactions may be used to inform targeted interventions based on risk stratification.

Thousands of buildings in Cleveland, Ohio were demolished or rehabilitated since the Great Recession in the 2000s. Recent evidence suggests removing vacant and decaying buildings reduces violent and firearm-involved crime. This study examines the dose-response relationship between demolitions, rehabilitations, and crime. We use Bayesian spatiotemporal models to estimate the association of interest for five types of crime outcomes: violent crimes, violent crimes involving a firearm, drug crimes, and crimes often associated with building vacancy. We estimate associations in quarterly time periods from 2012 through 2017 in 569 hexagons approximately the size of a neighborhood (2000 feet, approximately 610 m, in diameter), stratified by vacancy level. Across vacancy levels, the majority of our models do not identify statistically significant associations between demolition and rehabilitation dose and crime incidence. However, in some cases, we identify positive associations between demolition and crime. These associations generally appeared at higher levels of demolition (2 or 3 or more demolitions) in areas characterized by medium to high levels of vacancy. We also find that the presence of a property rehabilitation is associated with an increase in drug crimes in areas with medium levels of vacancy.

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