A recent study says young men who live in some of the most dangerous ZIP codes in America are more likely to be shot and killed than soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan were.
A study by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University found that The firearm-related death rate for young adult males living in the top 10% of most violent zip codes in Philadelphia is higher than the risk of combat death was for U.S. troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Chicago's firearm violence led residents to call it "Chiraq." But do the risks of gun violence in US cities really compare to the risks of war? In a new @JAMANetworkOpen study, our team did the math. The answer: In some US cities, the risks are much worse.https://t.co/iXm6YyeSXL
— Brandon del Pozo, PhD, MPA, MA (@BrandondelPozo) December 22, 2022
According to the study, of 129,826 young adult males aged 18 to 29 years living in the top 10% of most violent zip codes in the four cities studied, 45,725 (35.2%) were Black, 71,005 (54.7%) were Hispanic, and 40,355 (31.1%) were White.
Philadelphia’s most violent areas saw a 1.15 risk ratio level, compared to 1.0 and 0.84 in the Afghan War and Iraq War, respectively.
The study is limited to firearm-related incidents. However, study co-author Dr. Brandon del Pozo, an assistant professor at Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School, writes that if overall murder rates were included, the results may look different.
Pozo posits that if high overall murder rates suggest cities where young men may face death risks greater than war, then Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, St Louis, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Memphis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Newark may be compared to Chicago and Philadelphia.
If high overall murder rates suggest cities where young men may face death risks greater than war, then Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, St Louis, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Memphis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Newark may compare to Chicago and Philadelphia. https://t.co/6QdAHIR2jj pic.twitter.com/k8S6wK1iSK
— Brandon del Pozo, PhD, MPA, MA (@BrandondelPozo) December 22, 2022
Selwyn Duke of The New American points out that although the statistics are technically accurate, these “war zones” are relegated to certain parts of big cities. For more perspective, it is important to remember that 68 percent of our murders occur in just small parts of five percent of our counties. Additionally, 54 percent of counties had zero homicides.
Duke continues to show how statistics can be used to deceive readers, by pointing to an MSN.com distributed story that says “Guns are now the leading cause of premature death for children.” However, the story counts as “children,” anyone under 18. In reality, Duke says, the two leading causes of death for actual children, ages 1-14, are motor vehicle crashes and drowning, according to the CDC. Increasing the “childhood” age limit skews such statistics because it includes violent gang-bangers in them.
Duke ends his opinion piece with one more hard-to-swallow morsel of food for thought. “The most dangerous place for very, very young men (and women) in the U.S., with a murder rate of 20.3 percent,” he says, “is inside the womb.”
