KFF Health News and The Trace analyzed hospital billing records from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration covering 2018 through 2024. The dataset is deidentified administrative billing information that includes patients’ ZIP code of residence, age, race and other demographics and is used by hospitals to collect payments. From 2018 to 2024, more than 4,000 children age 17 or younger were hospitalized for firearm injuries in Florida — a rate the reporting teams describe as roughly 1.5 children per day.
The analysis focused on counts and rates of pediatric gunshot wound hospitalizations at the ZIP code level and presented choropleth maps and ranked tables showing the highest rates per 100,000 children. ZIP codes with between 1 and 10 youth hospitalizations are suppressed or represented as ranges in the public tables to comply with privacy rules.
The hospital data show that pediatric firearm injuries in Florida are highly concentrated in a small number of ZIP codes. Almost all of the ZIP codes with the highest rates are in Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, or the Tampa Bay region. In Jacksonville specifically, three ZIP codes rank among the 10 worst in the state for firearm injuries involving children.
The reporting includes ZIP code choropleth maps and a ranked table of ZIP codes by number and rate of under-18 gunshot wound hospitalizations; the maps use shaded buckets for rates per 100,000 children. The authors note that ZIP codes with small counts are suppressed in the public visualization to protect privacy.
Nearly all of the Florida ZIP codes with the highest pediatric firearm hospitalization rates have large Black or Latino populations. The story links the concentration of injuries to neighborhoods that remain racially segregated and economically disinvested. The data set used for the analysis includes race and age of patients, enabling the identification of these demographic patterns at the community level.
Researchers and local clinicians described how the long legacy of state-sanctioned discrimination in housing, banking and municipal investment has left many neighborhoods with concentrated poverty, pollution from former industrial operations, dilapidated housing and other stressors that correlate with higher rates of violence.
UF Health Jacksonville, described in the reporting as a safety-net hospital and the only Level I trauma center in northeastern Florida, receives a substantial share of the region’s firearm injury patients. Physicians quoted in the reporting said they see gunshot wound victims daily.
UF Health Jacksonville treated 255 patients for gunshot wounds in 2024, including 32 patients who were 17 or younger. These numbers illustrate the acute clinical load pediatric firearm injuries place on emergency and trauma services, particularly for hospitals serving disadvantaged communities.
The analysis and interviews in the reporting emphasize structural contributors to elevated pediatric firearm injury rates. Those factors include historical and ongoing racial segregation, concentrated poverty, years of municipal neglect, and environmental hazards tied to industrial siting and infrastructure decisions.
Local advocates and clinicians connected these social determinants of health to higher risk for young people in certain ZIP codes, noting that many affected neighborhoods have received inadequate city investment and remain exposed to additional health risks such as pollution from discontinued city-run facilities.
The report describes Florida as a state with permissive gun policies and highlights recent state actions that affect access and regulation. The governor signed a law allowing concealed carry without a permit. The story also notes that Florida law prevents cities and counties from adopting stricter local gun safety measures.
The reporting cites research linking more permissive state-level gun policies to increases in pediatric firearm deaths and places Florida among states characterized as having permissive policies. When the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory recognizing firearm violence as a public health crisis in 2024, state leadership criticized or declined to follow the advisory’s recommendations, according to the reporting.
The Florida Department of Health’s State Health Improvement Plan, as reviewed by the reporting team, does not include explicit objectives or strategies focused on reducing firearm injuries or deaths among children.
The hospital billing dataset used in the analysis is deidentified and intended for administrative and payment purposes. To protect privacy, the published ZIP code tables and maps suppress or aggregate ZIP codes with 1–10 youth gunshot wound hospitalizations; such ZIP codes are either omitted from detailed lists or presented as ranges.
The reporting team notes these privacy-driven suppressions when describing geographic patterns and rates, and the visualizations reflect those data constraints.
The human toll of pediatric firearm injuries is illustrated with local examples and interviews. Jacksonville’s nonprofit Families of Slain Children has erected a “Wall of Compassion” memorial listing hundreds of people killed by gunfire in the city. The reporting opens with the case of a 2-year-old child murdered in Jacksonville and notes that grieving families, community activists and local clinicians describe persistent unmet needs.
Local advocates quoted in the story say municipal attention and resources have been insufficient for neighborhoods most affected by child firearm injuries. Several city and state officials, including the Florida Department of Health, the governor’s office and most members of the Jacksonville City Council, declined interview requests for the story, according to the reporting.
The analysis provides ZIP code–level evidence that a small number of communities bear a disproportionate share of pediatric firearm hospitalizations in Florida and situates those findings within broader discussions of race, policy and the social determinants of health.