This report examines the World Health Organization’s (WHO) engagement with firearm violence from 2000 to 2025, arguing that despite its foundational role in framing violence as a public health issue, the WHO has progressively deprioritized gun violence as a distinct health risk. Firearm violence is shown to be a global public health crisis with profound consequences for mortality, injury, mental health, health systems, and social and economic stability—disproportionately affecting children, women, and young men, particularly in the Americas, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa. Guns are now a leading cause of death among children and adolescents in several countries, are strongly linked to femicide and domestic violence, and impose substantial, preventable burdens on healthcare systems.
Through a review of over 3,000 World Health Assembly resolutions, WHO publications, and expert interviews, the report finds that firearms are almost entirely absent from WHO’s formal policy agenda, even within violence prevention, gender-based violence, and child health frameworks where their impact is well established. This decline is attributed in part to political resistance from certain Member States and the influence of the gun industry. The report concludes that this neglect is inconsistent with WHO’s mandate and past leadership on comparable public health threats. Drawing lessons from tobacco control, it outlines concrete recommendations for revitalizing WHO leadership on firearm violence through improved data, research, advocacy, regulation, and integration into existing public health strategies.
