SDRG Researcher Vivian Lyons Links Climate Change and Firearm Violence

“We saw a really consistent relationship between temperature and a higher risk of shootings. When we are aware that firearm violence is more likely to happen on hotter days, regardless of the season, it can help inform violence prevention efforts.”

Between 2015 and 2020, nearly 8,000 shootings were attributable to unseasonably warm temperatures, according to a new analysis of 116,511 shootings in the 100 most populous cities in the United States. Prior research has established that shootings tend to peak in summer. Two prevailing theories suggest possible reasons: either because people are more likely to spend time outside in summer, or because heat affects aggression. But this new research shows that higher than average temperatures, in any season, increase the risk of shootings. This risk increases steadily with temperature increases. Surprisingly, however, it increases even at moderately hot temperatures, not just in extreme heat. Controlling for seasonality and long-term trends, Lyons and colleagues attribute 6.85% of shootings to above-average temperatures.

The article by Lyons and colleagues reminds readers of the historical context of segregation and disinvestment that leaves many communities of color disproportionality exposed to urban heat and other effects of climate change. Literature has shown that community-level heat adaptation strategies, such as increasing urban green spaces, have been associated with reductions in gun violence. These and other climate adaptation strategies should be considered as a response, because when they are implemented with other gun violence reduction strategies, synergistic effects might appear.

Lead author Vivian Lyons, PhD, recently joined SDRG as a research scientist, where she studies intervention evaluation to improve youth health and well-being. She started this cross-sectional study while she was a postdoc at the University of Michigan Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, with the Firearm Safety Amongst Children and Teens national consortium. This highly collaborative, interdisciplinary study was published recently in JAMA Network Open. It was also mentioned in a recent edition of The Guardian.