The skyline of Baltimore, Md. Kids in very low-opportunity communities in Maryland are more than 20 times likely to be hospitalized with a gunshot wound than those in the most advantaged neighborhoods, according to a new study. Photo by Styves Exantus via Pexels
Kids living in the poorest neighborhoods are up to 20 times more likely to be shot than their peers living in well-off areas, a new multi-state study found. Researchers at Northwestern Medicine analyzed nearly 7,000 pediatric gun injuries and mapped the odds of getting shot by ZIP code. Their study, published in August in the journal Pediatrics, found that kids in “low-opportunity” neighborhoods were far more likely to be shot than those in “high-opportunity” areas.
They looked at gun injuries that occurred in Florida, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin between 2016 and 2021. They paired the injury information with data that ranks neighborhoods based on education, health and socioeconomic factors…