RFA-CE-24-030, Preventing Community Violence and Advancing Racial and Health Equity: The Role of Anti-Poverty Policy

University Of California At Davis, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Poverty and income inequality have wide-ranging and disproportionate effects on children and families living in marginalized, minoritized, and low-wealth communities, including environmental, social-emotional, and behavioral health sequela that elevate risk for, and racial/ethnic inequities in, community violence and harm. At the same time, limited but promising evidence suggests that strategies that influence structural and social determinants of health by enhancing economic opportunity and helping families avoid financial stress can prevent violence and promote well-being and intersectional racial equity beyond economic outcomes. The overarching goal of this project is therefore to evaluate whether, how, and for whom two of the largest anti- poverty public policies in the United States—the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC)—affect the determinants, consequences, and prevention of multiple community violence-related outcomes among low-income families who are disproportionately affected by violence and its upstream structural and social causes. We will use a variety of analytic techniques, including difference-in-differences, the g-formula method for multiple causal mediation, and novel gap-closing estimands, along with data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), a racially diverse longitudinal birth cohort study of structurally disadvantaged urban children and their families spanning tax years 1997-2021, to address the following three more specific aims: (1) to estimate the overall and sex- and race/ethnicity-specific associations of federal and state EITC and ACTC benefits received during childhood (ages 0-15) with community violence in adolescence (age 15) and young adulthood (age 22), including physical fighting, weapon use, and direct and indirect exposure to community violence; (2) to investigate the intermediate mechanisms through which the EITC and ACTC may impact community violence, including behavioral, consumption, and family and environmental stress-related processes; and (3) to identify how racial/ethnic inequities in exposure to and experiences of community violence would change if the availability and generosity of the EITC and ACTC were equalized across time and place or if selected preconditions of benefit eligibility such as employment and income minimums were removed. This research addresses Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) Objective Three and multiple National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) Research Priorities, including cross-cutting and youth violence prevention research, as well as research to refine the concept, definition, and measurement of adverse childhood experiences to include structural and social conditions that elevate risk for community violence, including income and basic needs insecurities directly addressed in this project.