How birth year predicts exposure to gun violence
A new study examining exposure to gun violence from youth to middle-age reveals stark racial disparities — with more than half of Black and Hispanic respondents witnessing a shooting by age 14 on average — and surprising insights on the role of birth year. In the first-of-its-kind analysis published May 9 in JAMA Network Open, a Harvard sociology professor and colleagues set out to examine exposure to shootings by race, sex, and birth year using data that followed respondents from childhood up to age 40. “The idea here is to take a life-course perspective,” said Robert J. Sampson, the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor. “When is exposure to gun violence happening? How does that change over the life course? And how do those patterns vary by race, sex, and all the societal changes that are happening?” To tackle these questions researchers analyzed longitudinal data on a representative sample of 2,418...