Study: Residential Segregation Linked to Racial Disparity in Gun Homicides – By ALexa Lardieri (usnews.com) / July 13 2018
A study found that the more segregated housing is in a state, the higher the racial disparity there is among gun homicides.
Researchers found that the more racially segregated a state’s neighborhoods are, the higher the disparities between black homicide victims and white homicide victims.
(Hill Street Studios/Matthew Palmer/Getty Images)
States with greater degrees of residential segregation among their white and black populations have increased racial disparities in their levels of gun homicides, according to new research.
A study published in the Journal of the National Medical Association by researchers from Boston University School of Public Health examined the connection between residential racial segregation and firearm homicide deaths. Drawing on over 25 years of state-level data, the researchers found that the more racially segregated a state’s neighborhoods are, the higher the disparities between black homicide victims and white homicide victims.
“It was important for us to analyze this at the state level, because in the past we’ve found that a black person living in Wisconsin has a 22-fold higher risk of being fatally shot compared to a white person, but in New Mexico a black person has a 2-fold higher risk of being fatally shot compared to a white person,” Anita Knopov, the study’s lead author, said in a press release.
The researchers looked at data from 1991 to 2015 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They used a measure called the “index of dissimilarity” to measure racial segregation at a state level in 32 states. The index shows the degree of racial integration within neighborhoods, according to the press release. It runs on a scale from zero to 100, with larger numbers indicating more residential segregation.
The study found that for every 10-point increase in the index, the ratio of black to white gun homicide death rates increased by 39 percent. Additionally, increased levels of segregation were associated with fewer white fatalities and higher black fatalities.
Co-author Michael Siegel said in the release that even after accounting for other racial inequalities – including unemployment, poverty, income and wealth – the racial disparity in gun homicides still existed.
“These findings show that a history of structural racism over decades in the past has significant implications for the lives of black people today,” Siegel said.
