Nationwide rates of homicide fell in 2024, according to a Dec. 31 ABC News report.
The news comes six months after Surgeon General Vivek Murphy, MD, declared gun violence a public health issue, a move widely supported by healthcare industry leaders.
Based on data from 309 law enforcement agencies, there was an almost 16% nationwide drop in homicides and a 3.3% decline in violent crime overall, the report said.
The nationwide homicide rate has been steadily dropping since 2022 after a 30% jump between 2019 and 2020. Dropping rates have been reported across the country in major cities as well — by 40% in Philadelphia, 38% in New Orleans, 29% in Washington, D.C., 24% in Baltimore, 23% in Memphis, Tenn., 20% in Kansas City, Mo., 15% in Los Angeles, 7.3% in New York City and 7% in Chicago — according to the report.
"We see a very large decline in murder, a very large decline in gun violence happening in the U.S. in 2024," Jeff Asher, co-founder of AH Datalytics and former CIA crime analyst, told ABC News. "On top of what was a very large decline in murder and a very large decline in gun violence in 2023."
The report credited firearm legislation and community-based initiatives dedicated to gun violence prevention and mental health services with influencing the declining rates.
Robert Garrett, CEO of Edison, N.J.-based Hackensack Meridian Health, said gun violence is not a political issue, but a public health one directly connected to the healthcare industry.
"We owe it to our children and the countless families that are being destroyed every day to take action, starting at the bedside in emergency rooms," he wrote in a June 27 editorial for Becker's with Aakash Shah, MD, medical director at Project HEAL and chief of addiction medicine, department of psychiatry and behavioral health at Hackensack Meridian's Neptune City-based Jersey Shore University Medical Center.
Michael Dowling, CEO of New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health and organizer of the Gun Violence Prevention Learning Collaborative for Hospitals and Health Systems, also has applauded the surgeon general for recognizing gun violence as a national crisis.
Read the full ABC News report here.