19 Urban shootings are concentrated in neighborhoods stricken by poverty and neglect, and a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that blighted neighborhood environments are strongly tied to firearm violence in US cities. 13,18Ĭities in the United States experience a heavily disproportionate burden of the nation’s interpersonal firearm violence. Such contextual changes may take the form of actual, in-situ changes to the environments themselves, an approach that may be more politically feasible, economically viable, and have a greater probability of widespread implementation. 13–17 This may also apply to firearm violence-individuals who are simply instructed to adhere to safety practices are unlikely to be successful if the unsafe context within which they find themselves day after day does not permit it.ĭirectly changing the contexts and environments that promote firearm violence is a potentially potent solution to explore in reducing the persistent problem of firearm violence in the United States. It is now commonly accepted that changing the context within which health problems occur is a leading opportunity for high-impact change, often better than focusing on individuals and lifestyles.

Only a modicum of attention has been paid to intervening upon the context within which firearm violence occurs and the urban environments in which it thrives. The few interventions that have been shown to reduce firearm violence are often costly to sustain, politically impractical, or potentially infringe on Constitutional protections. Most attempts to reduce firearm violence in the United States have focused directly on the firearms themselves, the users of firearms, or the victims of firearm violence. 6Ĭombined fatal-plus-nonfatal firearm violence has been increasing in the United States over the past decade 7 and cost-beneficial interventions have been in short supply. Significant costs are also borne by taxpayers and society at large, with more than $48 billion per year in medical and work-loss costs alone. 1–5 As a public health issue, the costs of firearm violence in the United States are large and extend beyond the loss of life and emotional burden for affected individuals and families. The rate of firearm violence in the United States is estimated to be larger than that in any other developed nation, and the majority of fatal violence committed in the United States involves firearms. Urban blight remediation programs can be cost-beneficial strategies that significantly and sustainably reduce firearm violence. Abandoned buildings and vacant lots are blighted structures seen daily by urban residents that may create physical opportunities for violence by sheltering illegal activity and illegal firearms.

Respectively, taxpayer and societal returns on investment for the prevention of firearm violence were $5 and $79 for every dollar spent on abandoned building remediation and $26 and $333 for every dollar spent on vacant lot remediation.Ĭonclusions. Neither program significantly affected nonfirearm violence. We adjusted before–after percent changes and returns on investment in treated versus control groups for sociodemographic factors. We performed quasi-experimental analyses of the impacts and economic returns on investment of urban blight remediation programs involving 5112 abandoned buildings and vacant lots on the occurrence of firearm and nonfirearm violence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1999 to 2013. To determine if blight remediation of abandoned buildings and vacant lots can be a cost-beneficial solution to firearm violence in US cities.

Urban blight definition