STAT (1/3, Thielking) reports investigators “at Harvard and Yale have” used a “mathematical model to predict potential victims of gun violence in Chicago.” After examining “Chicago police data from 138,163 individuals who were arrested between 2006 and 2014, nearly 10,000 of whom were also victims of gun violence,” researchers found that “in 63 percent of the shootings they studied…social contagion played a key role.” Their study was published online Jan. 3 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
HealthDay (1/3, Mozes) reports that “social networks” are “acting as a breeding ground for the spread of gun exposure and violence,” the study findings suggest. Study author Ben Green, PhD, a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School, said, “Those at the highest risk of gun violence are the individuals with the most associates who have recently been shot.”
Related Links:
— “Gun violence spreads like an infectious disease, new research finds,” MEGAN THIELKING, STAT, January 3, 2017.