# RFA-CE-24-030,  Social policies to prevent firearm assault

> **NIH ALLCDC R01** · NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE · 2024 · $399,939

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Firearm violence is a persistent public health crisis that disproportionately affects young Black and Brown
people. From 2019 to 2021, firearm homicide rates rose an alarming 46% among people aged 10–34 years,
peaking at the highest levels seen in 20 years and exacerbating stark racial/ethnic inequities. Policies that
address the conditions contributing to persistently high rates of firearm violence are needed. Two major
categories of policies have a strong scientific premise but lack rigorous evaluations of their effectiveness in
reducing firearm homicide and nonfatal firearm assault injuries (herein referred to as “firearm assault”). First,
alcohol control policies (e.g., alcohol outlet density restrictions) are a well-established means of limiting alcohol
availability thereby reducing alcohol-related harms. No studies have clearly established whether alcohol control
policies prevent firearm assault. Second, economic support policies (e.g., income supplements) influence
upstream causes of firearm assault including poverty and income inequality, but the impacts of these policies
on racial/ethnic inequities in firearm assault are unknown. Local (city and county) policies, in particular, are
likely to shape the environments in which firearm assault unfolds. Further, research assessing the synergy
between these sets of policies is absent but essential to identify multifaceted solutions that maximize impact.
This will be the first quasi-experimental study to test the impacts of a range of local alcohol control and
economic support policies on overall rates and racial/ethnic inequities in firearm assault among young people.
The study will leverage heterogenous policy changes introduced by county governments during the COVID-19
pandemic, which provide an unprecedented opportunity to rigorously assess impacts on firearm assault. The
investigators will establish a cohort of ~90% of California residents ages 10-32 years, and construct a
longitudinal hierarchical database by individually linking birth records, emergency department encounters,
inpatient hospitalizations, and deaths, combined with comprehensive legal epidemiologic research on county
policies from 1/1/2018 to 12/31/2022. The Specific Aims are to evaluate the impacts of county 1) alcohol
control policies, 2) economic support policies, and 3) their interaction, on firearm assault, overall and by
race/ethnicity among California young people. This study will provide critical evidence that local governments
are urgently seeking on which policies they could enact or avoid to reduce firearm assault and promote health
equity in communities. This project addresses Objectives 2 and 3 of RFA-CE-24-030 as it entails effectiveness
research to evaluate alcohol control policies as place-based prevention approaches and economic support
polices as structural approaches to reduce firearm assault. It also addresses NCIPC’s Cross Cutting Violence
Prevention priority to “evaluate the effectivenes...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10992925
- **Project number:** 1R01CE003665-01
- **Recipient organization:** NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Ellicott Colson Matthay
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $399,939
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-30 → 2027-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10992925

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10992925, RFA-CE-24-030,  Social policies to prevent firearm assault (1R01CE003665-01). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/10992925. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*