# RFA-CE-24-030, Preventing Community Violence and Advancing Racial and Health Equity:  The Role of Anti-Poverty Policy

> **NIH ALLCDC R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS · 2024 · $396,321

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Poverty and income inequality have wide-ranging and disproportionate effects on children and families living in
marginalized, minoritized, and low-wealth communities, including environmental, social-emotional, and
behavioral health sequela that elevate risk for, and racial/ethnic inequities in, community violence and harm. At
the same time, limited but promising evidence suggests that strategies that influence structural and social
determinants of health by enhancing economic opportunity and helping families avoid financial stress can
prevent violence and promote well-being and intersectional racial equity beyond economic outcomes. The
overarching goal of this project is therefore to evaluate whether, how, and for whom two of the largest anti-
poverty public policies in the United States—the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Additional Child Tax
Credit (ACTC)—affect the determinants, consequences, and prevention of multiple community violence-related
outcomes among low-income families who are disproportionately affected by violence and its upstream structural
and social causes. We will use a variety of analytic techniques, including difference-in-differences, the g-formula
method for multiple causal mediation, and novel gap-closing estimands, along with data from the Future of
Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), a racially diverse longitudinal birth cohort study of structurally
disadvantaged urban children and their families spanning tax years 1997-2021, to address the following three
more specific aims: (1) to estimate the overall and sex- and race/ethnicity-specific associations of federal and
state EITC and ACTC benefits received during childhood (ages 0-15) with community violence in adolescence
(age 15) and young adulthood (age 22), including physical fighting, weapon use, and direct and indirect exposure
to community violence; (2) to investigate the intermediate mechanisms through which the EITC and ACTC may
impact community violence, including behavioral, consumption, and family and environmental stress-related
processes; and (3) to identify how racial/ethnic inequities in exposure to and experiences of community violence
would change if the availability and generosity of the EITC and ACTC were equalized across time and place or
if selected preconditions of benefit eligibility such as employment and income minimums were removed. This
research addresses Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) Objective Three and multiple National Center for
Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) Research Priorities, including cross-cutting and youth violence prevention
research, as well as research to refine the concept, definition, and measurement of adverse childhood
experiences to include structural and social conditions that elevate risk for community violence, including income
and basic needs insecurities directly addressed in this project.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10993810
- **Project number:** 1R01CE003649-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS
- **Principal Investigator:** Angela Bruns
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $396,321
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-30 → 2027-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10993810

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10993810, RFA-CE-24-030, Preventing Community Violence and Advancing Racial and Health Equity:  The Role of Anti-Poverty Policy (1R01CE003649-01). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/10993810. Licensed CC0.

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