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New Everytown Grant to Bolster Northwestern Research Team Studying City Gun Violence

4.1.2021

Research Grant Will Fund Two-Year Full-Time Post-Doctoral Fellowship, As Well As New Study of Street Outreach Workers 

NEW YORK — Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, the research arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, today announced it has awarded a $200,000 research grant to the Northwestern Neighborhood & Network Initiative (N3), including funding a new two-year fellowship position to advance the initiative’s innovative work studying gun violence with a focus on social relationships and network science. The grant will also fund a pilot survey in Chicago on street outreach workers.  

“The Northwestern Neighborhood & Network Initiative at Northwestern University is conducting some of the most innovative research in the country on city gun violence, and in the process, it’s highlighting important opportunities for intervention,” said Sarah Burd-Sharps, director of research at Everytown for Gun Safety. “Amid an increase in gun violence in Chicago and in cities across the country, this research has never been more timely. Dr. Papachristos’ groundbreaking work on the way people and groups are linked and how those connections affect their behavior will shed new light on city gun violence at a time when policymakers at all levels are looking to understand patterns and take data-driven action.”

“Northwestern University’s N3 Initiative is proud to launch this comprehensive survey of violence preventionists, designed and developed with our community partners, that will provide foundational knowledge of the outreach worker experience,” said Professor Andrew Papachristos, faculty director at N3. “Through the support of the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, we will be able to build on this and other N3 projects leveraging network science to help reduce gun violence and improve community well-being.”

Funding to the Northwestern Neighborhood & Network Initiative:

As the centerpiece of the grant, N3 will select the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund Post-Doctoral Fellow with expertise in data science and social network analysis for a two-year fellowship beginning this year. The fellow will research how social network theory can be used to develop new, and improve current, violence prevention efforts in Chicago and beyond. 

In an effort to develop a better understanding of street outreach workers working to prevent the spread of gun violence, N3 will also carry out a pilot study of street outreach workers to better understand the work experiences, life histories, and professional practices of this vital group of front-line community violence preventionists. The survey not only builds scientific knowledge but will also provide insights into a significant area of community led approaches to gun violence prevention.

Other recent research funded by Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund: 

The fellowship is Everytown Support Fund’s latest investment in groundbreaking research into gun violence and how to prevent it. Over the last two years, Everytown Support Fund’s research funding included:

  • $300,000 to Drs. Jacquelyn Campbell, Jill Messing, and Jesenia Pizarro at Johns Hopkins University & Arizona State University for research on the impact of firearms on intimate partner homicide risk.
  • $225,000 to research supported by the Fund for a Safer Future, including studies on community-level gun violence prevention in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, the effectiveness of extreme risk laws in California, and the risk of misdemeanors on future firearm-related crime in Washington.
  • $150,000 to Mapping Police Violence to support the collection of national police shooting data, feature new variables, and implement more frequent updates.
  • $22,000 to New York University to compile city-level gun violence data for the 500 largest US cities and calculate rates of gun homicides, suicides, and non-fatal assaults. Data will be available on EveryStat and NYU’s City Health Dashboard.
  • $150,000 to Dr. Munmun De Choudhury at Georgia Tech to study the immediate and long-term impacts of active shooter drills on the health and wellbeing of students, teachers, and parents.