Philadelphia

“The lives of Americans were turned upside down in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic and the untimely death of George Floyd,” says Professor Allison Redlich, CLS associate chair. “Dr. Dong’s and his colleagues’ study of firearm violence pro vides much needed insight into the impact of these events.

This study evaluated independent associations between COVID-19 containment policies and the killing of George Floyd on firearm violence in 1 US city, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The study aimed to describe the incidence of “neighborhood” mass shootings in one US city and to determine how these events were communicated to the public through news media.

What the researchers, who all work with the Penn Injury Science Center at the University of Pennsylvania, found was that areas of Philadelphia deemed “red zones” 80 years ago strongly correlate to areas that now have a high concentration of gun violence.

The current study describes variability in the burden of firearm violence by race, income, and place in an urban context.