Structural Racism and Long-term Disparities in Youth Exposure to Firearm Violence

Abstract

Young people's exposure to firearm violence in US cities has surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. 1,2 This study by Lanfear and colleagues 3 examines how long-term changes in firearm violence have influenced exposure across multiple birth cohorts in Chicago, Illinois. Comparing 4 cohorts from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), Lanfear et al 3 find that any benefits younger cohorts might have from declines in citywide violence from 1994 to 2014 were erased by subsequent violence increases. The results underscore how little progress we have made over several decades to address the root causes of community firearm violence and its disproportionate effects on Black and Hispanic youth.In the study by Lanfear and colleagues, 3 the youngest PHDCN cohort, born around 1996, entered adulthood after a sustained lull in firearm homicide rates in Chicago (ie, 2004-2014). This lull limited the cohort's exposure to neighborhood experiences of firearm violence, such as seeing someone get shot, during early life. However, these youth were in the highest-risk phase of adolescence (ages 18-24 years) when firearm violence spiked in 2016 and again in 2020. 3 Consequently, their cumulative risk of being shot was comparable to cohorts born earlier, including those who entered adolescence during the most violent years of the 1990s. 3 Exposure to firearm violence is associated with lasting consequences for youth and their loved ones. Indirect exposure (eg, witnessing violence) and direct exposure (eg, surviving an assault) can influence mental and physical health outcomes over the life course. In a subset of individuals, exposure is associated with the future enactment of firearm violence, feeding cycles of firearm violence at the community level. The increase in firearm violence during the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have long-term outcomes because it substantially increased both indirect 1 and direct 2 exposure among US youth. Therefore, it is crucial to continue scaling up public health programs to halt the violence surge and deal with its aftermath, especially through community-based outreach programs and trauma-informed services.At the same time, efforts must directly target the systemic inequities that concentrate firearm violence exposure among Black and Hispanic youth. Racial and ethnic disparities in these outcomes are profound and longstanding. In the study by Lanfear et al, 3 differences in firearm violence exposure by race were more extreme than differences between birth cohorts. By the end of the study period, exposure was roughly comparable across age cohorts but exposure was consistently lowest among White youth. Other recent work, such as a 2023 study by Jay et al, 2 reported that during the pandemic, Black children were 100 times, and Hispanic children 25 times, more likely than White children to be shot in Chicago and other major US cities.These staggering disparities demand action against structural racism as a driver of firearm violence. Incremental violence reductions, such as those...

Adolescents' exposure to community violence and associations with after‐school activities across two samples

“…The authors further found that Black and Hispanic respondents experienced higher rates of shootings near their residences compared to White participants. Combined, these studies and our results point to the pernicious effects that structural racism, in the form of ethnic/racial and socioeconomic segregation that concentrates violence in certain neighborhoods, has on urban youth (Jay, 2023).…”

“…Results from the LCA highlight the need to better understand how factors across more distal systems influence youth's exposure to violence (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006;Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993;Jay, 2023;Overstreet & Mazza, 2003). While theoretical models describing macrosystem relations involved in youth violence exposure are not new, less research has focused on the role of exosystemic factors.…”

“…Structural factors-discrimination, disinvestment, economic disparity, racism, redlining, and over-policing-have historically pushed violence into areas within urban spaces mostly inhabited by ethnic/racial minorities and people from low socioeconomic backgrounds (Jacoby et al, 2018;Jay, 2023). Race and income in and of themselves do not explain these disparities in violence exposure; rather, they reflect structures and systems that maintain minoritized groups at increased risk for a myriad of detrimental conditions and outcomes (Jacoby et al, 2018).…”

Evaluating Firearm Violence After New Jersey’s Cash Bail Reform

“…Moreover, there are also charges including murder and serious gun offenses that automatically receive a no-release recommendation, preventing pretrial release and potentially contributing to racial inequities in pretrial detention. New Jersey and other localities are considering revisions and updates to their risk assessment tools, and the impacts of these policy reforms should also be evaluated for their consequences for racial justice and community health equity …”

“…New Jersey and other localities are considering revisions and updates to their risk assessment tools, and the impacts of these policy reforms should also be evaluated for their consequences for racial justice and community health equity. 44 , 45 …”