Children who live in “low-opportunity” neighborhoods are up to 20 times more likely to be shot than those living in “high-opportunity” areas, according to a new study led by Northwestern University researchers.
The team looked at nearly 7,000 pediatric gun injuries in the states of Florida, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin between 2016 and 2021. The researchers paired those records with data that ranks neighborhoods based on education, health and socioeconomic factors.
Dr. Anne Stey, a senior study author and Northwestern Medicine trauma surgeon, said their findings show the fewer opportunities a child has in their neighborhood, the higher the odds of them ending up in the hospital with a gun injury.
“This is certainly very striking,” Stey said.
She said the findings were especially surprising because their research also found that most firearm injuries among children are unintentional, such as accidental gun discharges.
“But just being in a very high opportunity area doesn’t necessarily protect people from having their children potentially be a victim of firearm injury,” she added.
Stey characterizes “low-opportunity” neighborhoods as ones where adults are more likely to be underemployed, where vacant lots are abundant or where schools may be underfunded.
Firearm injuries are the leading cause of death among U.S. children, according to research from Johns Hopkins University.
Although children in “high-opportunity” neighborhoods were far less likely to be injured, Stey said they were more than twice as likely to die when they were.
These numbers are driven by higher rates of self-inflicted injuries, Stey said.
“The mechanism for those injuries was much more serious … so very close range, done with the intent to hurt themselves,” Stey said. “Those are the types of cases where, when they make it to the hospital, it’s very hard for us to intervene, because the injury can be so severe that there’s not much that we can do.”
Stey is urging city and state leaders to implement prevention strategies that could educate the public on firearm safety and storage.
“We’ve got to unite people around this important cause,” she said. “Our children are our future. They’re the people who are going to be supporting us when we’re all retired and in nursing homes, and they’re going to be the ones who are our doctors.
“If too many of them are dying, and are not even able to live out their full life and have the potential that they could have on our economy and our world, that’s a huge loss for society.”
Anna Savchenko is a reporter for WBEZ. You can reach her at asavchenko@wbez.org.