Spatiotemporal modeling reveals structural vulnerabilities drive most firearm incidents across urban census tracts, indicating the need for targeted upstream community investments.
Key Points
Disentangle the relative contributions of chronic baseline risk factors versus dynamic transmission processes in urban firearm violence.
Applied an endemic–epidemic spatiotemporal model to analyze approximately 24,000 firearm-related incidents across urban census tracts over 596 weeks (January 2014 to July 2025).
Incorporated time-varying structural covariates, including alcohol outlet access and metrics of neighborhood social vulnerability.
Endemic components tied to persistent structural vulnerabilities—notably elevated alcohol outlet density and scarce essential resources—accounted for approximately 79% of firearm incidents.
Short-term surges were significantly driven by recent local recurrence within the same census tract, displaying minimal spatial spillover into neighboring tracts.