Publications by authors named "Marc A Zimmerman"

Youth interpersonal firearm violence (e.g., homicides) disproportionately affects Black youth and contributes to racial health disparities.

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In the U.S., crime and violence are concentrated in cities that have lost industry and population due to economic disinvestment and structurally racist policies.

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Firearm carriage poses a significant public health challenge, especially for youth (ages 14-24) living in predominantly Black communities that endured racial and economic segregation. Structural racism is a determinant of fatal and nonfatal firearm assaults, but the influence of structural racism on youth firearm carriage has received limited attention. Our study examines whether community violence exposure mediates the association between racialized economic segregation and youth firearm carriage.

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Introduction: Firearm injuries are a leading cause of death for youth/young-adults. We utilized latent class analysis to identify distinct motivational/behavioral patterns of firearm possession in a youth/young-adult emergency department sample to inform prevention strategies.

Methods: Cross-sectional data were obtained from surveys conducted among youth/young-adults (age = 16-29; n = 1311) seeking emergency department treatment (7/10/2017-6/25/2018).

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Article Synopsis
  • * Using data from 2017 to October 2022, researchers found that fatal firearm incidents increased notably in low-graded areas, indicating a significant rise in violence following the pandemic.
  • * The findings suggest that historical policies, like those from the Home Owners Loan Corporation, have led to growing racial disparities in firearm violence, emphasizing the need for investment in marginalized communities to mitigate future crises.
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Although experiencing violence is a risk factor for substance use among youth, its association with same-day use of multiple substances (a form of polysubstance use) and mitigating factors is less well understood. To identify whether prosocial factors modified the effect of experiencing violence on the frequency of same-day use, and examine gender-specific risk/protective factors for same-day use. We analyzed longitudinal data from a cohort of youth who use drugs aged 14-24 ( = 599; 58% male) presenting to an urban emergency department between 2009-2011 and assessed biannually for two years.

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Land banks across the United States are managing expanding vacant property inventories. By maintaining vacant properties and engaging residents in the process, land banks facilitate processes integral to building safe neighborhoods and may play a role in violence prevention. Using generalized additive mixed model regression, adjusted for spatial and temporal dependencies, we examined whether land bank ownership and stewardship of vacant properties in Flint, Michigan were associated with trends in serious, violent, and firearm-involved crime, between 2015 and 2018.

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Illegal dumping is a public health burden for communities suffering from historical disinvestment. We conducted a mixed methods study to answer: 1) What are stakeholder perspectives on social/environmental determinants of illegal dumping? and 2) Do these or other characteristics predict known locations of illegal dumping? We employed an exploratory sequential design in which we collected and analyzed in-depth interviews (n=12) with service providers and residents and subsequently collected and analyzed data from multiple secondary sources. Stakeholders endorsed nine determinants of illegal dumping: Economic Decline, Scale of Vacancy, Lack of Monitoring, Poor Visibility, Physical Disorder, Illegal Activity, Norms, Accessibility, and Seclusion.

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Importance: Acute stroke treatment rates in the US lag behind those in other high-income nations.

Objective: To assess whether a hospital emergency department (ED) and community intervention was associated with an increased proportion of patients with stroke receiving thrombolysis.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This nonrandomized controlled trial of the Stroke Ready intervention took place in Flint, Michigan, from October 2017 to March 2020.

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Youth living in areas with high concentrations of vacant properties may be at particular risk for poor health outcomes given the associations between deteriorated vacant properties, poor mental health, and community violence. Vacant lot greening has emerged as a key strategy to mitigate the harms of deteriorated properties. Youth engagement in greening has documented benefits for youth, yet few organizations responsible for managing vacant properties currently engage youth.

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Policy Points Firearm injury is a leading cause of death in the United States, with fatality rates increasing 34.9% over the past decade (2010-2020). Firearm injury is preventable through multifaceted evidence-based approaches.

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The association between witnessing firearm-involved violence and firearm carriage among teens, independent of non-firearm involved violence, has yet to be identified. The present analyses estimate associations of witnessing firearm-involved violence and non-firearm involved violence with firearm carriage in a nationally representative sample of teens. Data are from the FACTS National Survey-a cross-sectional web-based survey of 2140 US teenagers (ages 14-18) fielded in June-July 2020.

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Background: Factors related to risky drinking (e.g., motives, protective behavioral strategies [PBS]) may vary between youth who engage in polysubstance use compared to those who consume alcohol only.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers found that making vacant lots nicer can help lower crime in neighborhoods.
  • They studied how involving the community in greening lots, like planting flowers or cleaning up, affected crime levels compared to just mowing or leaving the lots alone.
  • The results showed that areas with community help or professional mowing saw less violence, especially those with community involvement, supporting the idea that a busier and nicer environment can stop crime.
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Firearm possession increases the likelihood of hospital visits among adolescents and emerging adults for both males and females. To better inform prevention practices, we examine data among adolescents and emerging adults (A/EAs; ages 16 to 29) presenting to an urban emergency department for any reason to understand the differences in firearm possession between males and females (N = 1312; 29.6% male; 50.

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Firearms are the leading cause of death for high-school age teens. To inform prevention efforts, we characterize the prevalence of healthcare provider (HCP) counseling of caregivers of teens around firearm safety, safety conversation elements, and caregiver receptivity towards counseling. A cross-sectional web survey (6/24/2020-7/22/2020) was conducted among caregivers (n = 2924) of teens (age:14-18).

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Firearm injury is a significant public health concern among youth living in the United States. Youth with exposure to violence (ETV) are more susceptible to carrying and using a firearm. Few researchers, however, have examined psychological mechanisms undergirding the association between ETV and firearm aggression.

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Youth violence remains a significant public health problem despite efforts to address it. We describe the evaluation results of Youth Empowerment Solutions (YES), an after-school active learning program implemented by trained local teachers and designed to engage middle school youth in multi-systematic promotive behaviors at the individual-, interpersonal-, and community-level to make lasting positive changes within the context of institutional disadvantages, such as racism. First, we used a modified randomized controlled trial design to examine the direct and indirect influence of YES on prosocial and delinquent behaviors 12 months after the conclusion of the program, through youth empowerment.

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Racial discrimination jeopardizes a wide range of health behaviors for African Americans. Numerous studies demonstrate significant negative associations between racial discrimination and problematic alcohol use among African Americans. Culturally specific contexts (e.

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Firearms are a leading cause of death among youth and young adults. Given community violence is an important correlate of youth firearm carriage, we evaluated: 1) If the association between perceived community violence and firearm carriage is stronger when perceived police bias is greater; and 2) If this moderated association differs by race. Cross-sectional data came from screening data for a longitudinal study of firearm behaviors among young adults seeking urban emergency department treatment between July 2017-June 2018 (N = 1264).

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