Gun violence resulted in initial hospitalization costs of more than $6.6 billion nationwide from 2006 through 2014 — an average of $734.6 million per year, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

In an analysis of data from 267,265 patients who were admitted for firearm-related injuries during the nine-year period, the researchers reported that the $6.6 billion figure is only a fraction of the total hospital costs incurred by gunshot wounds: It does not include costs of emergency room visits — medical costs for patients who are treated and released or those who are treated but die before admission — or hospital readmissions.

The study was published online March 21 in the American Journal of Public Health. The lead author is medical student Sarabeth Spitzer. The senior author is Thomas Weiser, MD, associate professor of surgery.

“There is a high cost for these injuries, especially because they are preventable,” Spitzer said. The study included hospitalization costs of shooting injuries that were self-inflicted, unintentional or due to assault.

At Stanford, 10 percent of trauma patients are admitted with gunshot or knife wounds — a small but important proportion of the patient population, Weiser said.

Little research on gun violence

Despite the scale of the problem, there exists surprisingly little research on gun violence from a public health perspective. This is, in part, due to a measure Congress passed in 1996 that restricts federal funding for firearms research, Spitzer said.