At a glance
University of California at Davis researchers are learning how children and teens experience gun violence in big cities and its impacts on their health.
Initial findings
The University of California at Davis research team found that one in four youth live within a half mile of where at least one gun homicide happened in the past year. Black and Latinx youth were more likely to experience a gun homicide, experienced incidents more recently, and had incidents closer to home when compared to White youth.
The team found significant mental health effects of this exposure to gun homicide. Boys in the most disadvantaged communities, particularly Black boys, were at the greatest risk of exposure to gun violence and depression.
In another study, the researchers studied "collective efficacy." Collective efficacy means that neighbors work together, trust each other, and are willing to intervene for the common good. It can be a powerful factor in preventing community violence. They found that adolescents living in lower income households in neighborhoods with high collective efficacy, had the same risk of firearm violence exposure to adolescents in middle- or high-income households in neighborhoods with low collective efficacy. This underscores the importance of programs to enhance neighborhood social ties to prevent gun violence.
The research:
- Inequities in Community Exposure to Deadly Gun Violence by Race/Ethnicity, Poverty, and Neighborhood Disadvantage among Youth in Large US Cities.
- Heterogeneous effects of spatially proximate firearm homicide exposure on anxiety and depression symptoms among U.S. youth.
- Neighborhood collective efficacy and environmental exposure to firearm homicide among a national sample of adolescents.