New research from an associate professor in The University of New Mexico’s College of Population Health (COPH) is shedding light on significant disparities in gun violence experienced by African American communities across the United States and the societal factors that play a role.
Tameka L. Gillum, PhD, has 25 years of experience researching intimate partner violence and community health within minority populations. Her latest publication proposes that gun violence prevention efforts in African American communities should address structural factors in society.
As an African American scholar who is from and has spent decades working in predominantly Black communities, I know firsthand the devastating impact that violence disparities, facilitated by structural inequalities, have had on our communities. This paper seeks to shed light on this urgent public health concern and the structural conditions which foster it.
The importance of Gillum’s research is driven by alarming statistics from 2021, which recorded 48,830 gun-related fatalities in the United States, an all-time high. Strikingly, African Americans face a gun homicide rate nearly 14 times higher than their white counterparts. These disparities prompted Gillum to further assess underlying causes of this inequity, seeking to clarify the factors contributing to this public health crisis. These include factors such as institutional racism, inadequate community health support in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and structural economic disadvantages faced by African Americans.
Titled "Using the Socio-Ecological Model to Understand Increased Risk of Gun Violence in the African American Community," Gillum’s paper has been published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Psychological Reports. The socio-ecological model utilized in the paper is a public health framework that helps understand how different levels of society influence a person's experiences, behaviors and health outcomes. The model helps establish how broader societal issues work together to shape rates of community violence and individual health outcomes, providing a lens to better determine potential prevention strategies to address gun violence.
The socio-ecological model identifies four levels (individual, relationship, community, societal) to improve our understanding of the connection between individuals and their environments. Gillum used this model to determine why the African American community experiences an elevated risk of gun violence in the U.S. and to propose strategies for prevention.
In the publication, Gillum, along with her colleagues Clarice J. Hampton, MA, and Chante Coppedge, MS, identified a range of risk factors across all levels of the socio-ecological model. At the individual level, they found substantial barriers to accessing support services, including lack of culturally sensitive medical care and personal transportation issues. Community level factors include intrusive policing and chronic exposure to violence, which create a cycle of trauma. The authors highlight how societal level issues that are deeply rooted in historical racism and persistent structural inequities perpetuate the problem of gun violence in African American communities. For example, it is noted by Gillum that during a study of six low-income neighborhoods in New Haven, Connecticut, researchers found that African American participants were more likely than Latinx and white residents to have heard gunshots in their neighborhood and to have experienced loss of a loved one due to violence, including gun violence.
Gillum's work emphasizes the need for multilevel interventions to address gun violence in African American communities. The authors suggest that efforts should target both immediate concerns, such as firearms access, and broader societal issues rooted in structural racism and social inequalities. This work underscores the importance of culturally specific and coherent approaches in developing prevention strategies. It suggests policy-level interventions, including stronger federal policies on gun violence, while also advocating for community-based programs and efforts to address underlying structural inequalities. This comprehensive approach reflects the authors findings that gun violence in African American communities is influenced by a wide range of structural factors beyond individual behaviors.
As the country continues to struggle with the persistent issue of gun violence, this valuable synthesis offers analysis and identifies potential multi-level approaches to addressing this pressing crisis and contributes to broader awareness and understanding of the disproportionate impact of gun violence on the African American community as a critical public health issue.