This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Physical surroundings affect everything from personal well-being to a neighborhood's safety. A new study from The Ohio State University finds that when it comes to preventing gun violence in a community, green space can help, but its location makes a big difference.
A growing body of research shows that urban green spaces—parks and other areas lined with plants, grass and trees—improve community and individual health outcomes by encouraging physical activity, reducing stress and improving air quality. They've also been associated with reduced gun violence and other violent crimes, but the relationship is complex and not fully understood. While attending a recent conference, the study's lead author, Gia Barboza-Salerno, made a point that resonated with fellow researchers who study urban greenery and violence prevention: When it comes to the effects of green space on communities, local context matters.
"It's not as simple as planting a tree and thinking that alone will solve it," said Barboza-Salerno, an associate professor in Ohio State's colleges of social work and public health. "Even though we know urban greenery is a great prevention measure for a lot of reasons, we don't understand how or whether there's an interaction between where this greenery is—the local context in which the greenery sits—and a subsequent reduction in violence." That question became the basis for a study published in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening. Barboza-Salerno's team looked at how green space, neighborhood disadvantage and gun violence intersect in Cook County, Illinois, which reported the most homicides in the U.S. in 2022.
"Firearm-related violence is a public health crisis in this country, and it disproportionately affects young Black males," Barboza-Salerno said. According to research cited in the study, racial and ethnic disparities in violence are often linked to factors such as poverty, limited educational and employment opportunities, economic inequality and residential segregation. Urban green spaces may offer protective benefits, but no previous study had specifically investigated greenery near the locations of firearm-related deaths as it would be seen from the street level, from a pedestrian's point of view, according to the study.
"We really wanted to show in this paper that urban planning is a critical part of public health prevention by evaluating the quality of streets that people traverse daily in their activity spaces," Barboza-Salerno said. As director of Ohio State's Investigating Spatial Structures in Urban Environments (ISSUES) Lab, Barboza-Salerno leads a research group that uses advanced spatial statistics, geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) and machine learning to understand how neighborhood environments shape health, safety and social well-being. For this study, the team examined 899 firearm homicides and 2,256 natural deaths in the county in 2023 and compared them with natural deaths of people similar in age, sex and race who died nearby.
By using Google Street View images and machine learning tools, they measured the amount and types of greenery a person would actually see from the street where each death occurred. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. d research that matter—daily or weekly. The study found that more visible greenery, tree canopy and green space along walkable streets were linked to lower odds that a death in that location was a firearm-related homicide.
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