So far in 2025, the dashboard reports 454 firearm-related deaths. (M-Production/Shutterstock)
A new dashboard launched by the city of Houston is on track to bring awareness to firearm-related injuries and deaths.
The new “SAFEWatch” dashboard, now live on the Houston Health Department’s website, is the first public tool of its kind in the US. It will be updated quarterly in January, April, July, and October.
According to the website, the dashboard brings together information from multiple agencies, including:
- Clinical data: Level I trauma centers and emergency department visits
- First responder data: EMS/911 transports and police-sheriff-reported non-fatal injuries
- Outcome data: Death (mortality) records
Unintentional firearm injuries account for about a fifth of the reported injuries, and disproportionately affect children and young adults.
“Just to paint the picture for each and every one of us, when a 4-year-old finds an unsecured gun at a friend’s house and pulls the trigger, if that child isn’t killed, they’re rushed to the hospital and provided with lifesaving care,” Houston City Council member Abbie Kamin said. “That child will eventually go home, experiencing long-term, indescribable trauma. And their family, along with employers and taxpayers, incur astronomical medical expenses. And on top of that, as a city, we may actually never know that the injury actually happened.”
The dashboard is a collaboration between Kamin and a wide network of agencies, including the Houston Fire Department, the Houston Police Department, the Harris County Medical Examiner Office, UTHealth Houston McGovern Medical School, Harris Health System/Ben Taub Hospital, Memorial Hermann Health System, and Texas Children’s Hospital.
Advocates say the tool will help them better target interventions by showing where these incidents occur, who is most affected, and under what circumstances.
“We do a lot of work with safe gun storage, and this helps us get more of the real statistics when it comes to what we’re looking for with the unintentional shootings,” gun safety advocate Marentha Sargent, whose daughter was killed by an unintentional gunshot wound, told Houston Public Media. “We give away gun safes, and it would be nice to be able to see where the unintentional shootings were happening and what we could do to help that.”
So far in 2025, the dashboard reports 454 firearm-related deaths, with a majority of them affecting adults between the ages of 25-34. p. Another 87 deaths were among 18- to 24-year-olds, and 24 were teens ages 15-17.
The dashboard has already sparked discussion among Houston residents.
“This is a great way to get closer to a root cause of gun violence,” one Houston Reddit user wrote. “If most is kids getting a hold of guns, I would hope that data would be used for better education and regulations about gun safety in the home.”
Others are skeptical the dashboard will get to the root of the problem, and that enforced gun safety regulations are the only way to fix the issue.
“Regulations mean jack sh*t when they aren’t enforced,” another Houston Reddit user said. “The problem is that it’s only enforced after the fact when a child fires a gun they found in the home.”
