Abstract
BackgroundResearch on violence exposure emphasizes discrete acute events such as direct and witnessed victimization. Little is known about the broad range of experiences of violence (EVs) in daily life. This study assesses the prevalence and patterns of distribution of 6 EVs in an adult general population.MethodsCalifornia state-representative survey administered online (English and Spanish), July 14–27, 2020. Adult (age ≥ 18 years) California resident members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel were eligible to participate. Two EVs concerned community environments: (1) the occurrence of gunshots and shootings in the neighborhood and (2) encounters with sidewalk memorials where violent deaths occurred. Four concerned social networks: direct personal knowledge of individuals who (1) had purposefully been shot by someone else or (2) had purposefully shot themselves, and direct personal knowledge of individuals whom respondents perceived to be at risk of violence, either (3) to another person or (4) to themselves. Main outcome measures, expressed as weighted percentages with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), were the prevalence and extent (or dose) of each EV and of EVs in combination and associations between EVs and respondents’ sociodemographic characteristics and firearm ownership status.ResultsOf 2870 respondents (57% completion rate), 52.3% (95% CI 49.5–55.0%) were female; mean [SD] age was 47.9 [16.9] years. Nearly two-thirds (64.6%, 95% CI 61.9–67.3%) reported at least 1 EV; 11.4% (95% CI 9.7–13.2%) reported 3 or more. Gender was not associated with the prevalence of any experience. Non-owners of firearms who lived with owners reported more extensive EVs through social networks than did firearm owners or non-owners in households without firearms. Knowledge of people who had been shot by others was most common among Black respondents, 31.0% (95% CI 20.9–43.3%) of whom knew 2 or more such persons. Knowledge of people who had shot themselves was greatest among respondents aged ≥ 60 years, but knowledge of persons perceived to be at risk of violence to themselves was greatest among respondents aged 18–29 years.Conclusions and relevanceExperiences of violence in daily life are widespread. They occur in sociodemographic patterns that differ from those for direct victimization and suggest new opportunities for research and intervention.
Highlights
Research on violence exposure emphasizes discrete acute events such as direct and witnessed vic‐ timization
We developed measures for 6 EVs based on prior research (Mitchell et al 2019; Kagawa et al 2020; Aubel et al 2020; Leibbrand et al 2020, 2021; Aisenberg 2001; Clark et al 2007; Zuberi 2012; Echeverria et al 2014; Santilli et al 2017; Smith et al 2020) and media reports on communities highly impacted by violence, and we examined those EVs in a 2020 survey of a state-representative sample of California adults
The survey was administered by the research firm Ipsos (2020), and the study population was drawn from the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, an online research panel used in the 2018 iteration of CSaWS (Kravitz-Wirtz et al 2020; Schleimer et al 2020a, b; Tomsich et al 2020) and other studies related to firearm ownership (Azrael et al 2015; Salhi et al 2019, 2021; Miller et al 2017; Siegel and Boine 2019; Siegel et al 2021; Kravitz-Wirtz et al 2021a)
Summary
Research on violence exposure emphasizes discrete acute events such as direct and witnessed vic‐ timization. This study assesses the prevalence and patterns of distribution of 6 EVs in an adult general population. Preliminary data indicate that homicide rates rose by more than 25% nationwide in 2020 and by more than 30% in many major cities, in some cases to levels not seen in a generation (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2020; Rosenfeld et al 2021). American civilian deaths during 2010–2019 from firearm violence (homicide and suicide) outnumber American combat fatalities from the World War II and the Vietnam Conflict combined (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2021; Blum and DeBruyne 2020). Most studies of exposure to violence have focused on discrete acute events such as direct or witnessed victimization (Zimmerman and Posick 2016). There is ample evidence that these exposures can have serious, longlasting adverse effects on the persons exposed, members of their families and social networks, and their communities, when firearms are involved (Mitchell et al 2019; Kagawa et al 2020; Aubel et al 2020; Leibbrand et al 2021)
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