Millions of Californians know someone at risk of committing violence, UC Davis study finds
Two out of three Californians experience some aspect of violence in their daily lives, according to research from the University of California, Davis, published Monday in the medical journal Injury Epidemiology.
“Almost everybody is touched by this, and we’re a state with relatively low rates of firearm violence. I would expect the situation would be worse in many other states,” said Dr. Garen Wintemute, who directs the UC Davis Health Violence Prevention Research Program and is an emergency department physician.
Although relatively few people actually have been attacked themselves or even have witnessed violence, Wintemute and his colleagues said, millions of state residents regularly hear gunshots, pass sidewalk memorials to victims or hear from people in their social network who were directly affected.
The UC Davis researchers said they drew their conclusions from data gathered for the California Safety and Well-being Survey in July 2020. Roughly 2,870 people responded to this online survey, administered by the research firm Ipsos, and the survey results were weighted to ensure they were statistically representative of California’s adult population.
If you live with someone who owns a firearm, the study results showed you are more likely to have people in your social network who have experienced violence than firearm owners or non-owners do, leading researchers to say further study is needed on whether secondhand gun ownership may be a public health risk similar to secondhand smoke. Three-fourths of non-owners who lived with owners were women, the researchers noted.
“If people who live in homes with guns, but don’t own guns themselves, have these many experiences of people at risk of violence, they could be a whole new resource for intervention,” Wintemute said. “Maybe we can work with them to help at-risk people and reduce suicides and possibly other firearm violence.”
Other findings:
▪ An estimated 5 million Californians personally know multiple people who have been intentionally shot.
▪ 6.3 million know someone who may be at risk of committing violence against themselves or others.
▪ Black and Latino respondents were much more likely than others to report experiencing violence related to the community environment — gunshots and sidewalk memorials, for instance — and interpersonal violence, while white respondents were more likely to report knowing individuals whose violence was self-directed.
“We had people who responded that they passed sidewalk memorials 25 times or more a week,” Wintemute said. “And I thought, at what point does living in your neighborhood resemble living in a cemetery? What does that do to your sense of a future for your community and yourself?”
The UC Davis research team, which also includes Amanda J. Aubel, Rocco Pallin, Julia P. Schleimer and Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz, are now working on a follow-up study to measure how these experiences may impact mental and physical health.
“If we show they are associated with ill effects, we may be able to intervene,” Wintemute said. “There are few people in California who can say this does not affect them, and since we’re all involved, let’s work together on solutions.”
