School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports
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Ep 29. Gun violence exposure on walkable routes to and from school
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Ep 29. Gun violence exposure on walkable routes to and from school

Using data from acoustic-detection sensors, a new study found alarming spatial patterns of gun-violence exposure along walkable routes to and from schools in Englewood, Chicago.

Children heading to and from school in Englewood, on the south side of Chicago, are heavily dependent on public transit and walking, because about half of residents live in households without vehicular access. Those walking routes are through violence-prone areas.

The study was published in November in SSM - Population Health, the online, peer-reviewed journal. Researcher Gia Barboza-Salerno led the study, working alongside Sharefa Duhaney and Hexin Yang, all from the College of Public Health at Ohio State University in Columbus.

Paper: Spatial accessibility to gun violence exposure on walkable routes to and from school

  • Analyzed exposure to gun violence on walkable street networks near schools using computational spatial methods.

  • Gun violence clusters along streets near schools, including designated "safe passage" routes.

  • During the afternoon commute, an average of 18.06 gunshots are within reach of a 15-min walk.

  • About 40% and 62% of schools had at least one gunshot within 400 meters during the morning and afternoon commute.


David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.

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