What do we know about the shooting victims UNMH treats?

Editor’s note: this is part three of a three-part series looking at gun violence data from the University of New Mexico Hospital. Part one can be found here and part two can be found here.

In order to get a sense of who is getting shot around the state, City Desk ABQ combed through three years’ worth of data on the people University of New Mexico Hospital treated. The data was obtained by attorney Thomas Grover.

The data includes some notes about whether a shooting was accidental or intentional but does not do so for every patient.

Almost three quarters — 72% — of all patients who were treated for gunshot wound injuries at UNMH over the three-year period used Medicaid as their primary insurance, meaning they are at a lower income level. 

This is higher than the percentage of New Mexicans who have signed up for Medicaid, which peaked at almost 1 million — half the state’s population — in 2023. UNMH could not supply data on what percentage of it’s overall patients use Medicaid.

In an interview, Heidi Capriotti, deputy director of communications for the Health Care Authority’s Medical Assistance Division, said the number of UNMH gunshot-wound patients who used Medicaid is a data point that could be used to inform policies going forward. 

“Hypothetically, we could use data like this to think about policies like reimbursing providers for gun locks, for safety locks on gun vaults,” she said. “There’s lots of ways we could use this data to inform policy and create an idea of how we might address this public health issue.”

In terms of other demographics, male patients far outpace female patients and the majority — 65% — of the patients are between the ages of 15 and 35.The data includes some entries for race and ethnicity, but it is not listed for every patient.

More broadly, gun violence among teenagers has been rising over the past several years and researchers noted an increase in juveniles shot and killed around the country. New Mexico was no exception.

The youngest patient treated at UNMH, a baby boy, was born in the hospital to a 17-year-old girl who had been shot. The girl survived, the baby died after a day. The oldest, an 83–year-old man, was accidentally shot. He spent three days in the hospital before being discharged to a skilled nursing facility.