Over half of all Chicagoans will witness a shooting by age 40, a new Journal of the American Medical Association study finds.
Researchers found the numbers are even more stark when broken down along racial barriers, with over half of all Black and Latino study participants by that age having already witnessed such an occurrence, compared to one-fourth of all white participants.
“We expected levels of exposure to gun violence to be high, but not this high,” said study author Charles Lanfear, an assistant professor at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology. “Our findings are frankly startling and disturbing. A substantial portion of Chicago’s population could be living with trauma as a result of witnessing shootings and homicides, often at a very young age.”