Researchers at Boston University and the University of Washington have found that warmer temperatures outside are attributed to spikes in gun violence.
The study was published in JAMA Network Open.
“This cross-sectional study used distributed lag nonlinear models, controlling for seasonality and long-term time trends by city and pooled results overall and by climate region,” according to researchers.
“The most populous cities in the US with the highest number of assault-related firearm incidence (ie, shootings) from 2015 to 2020 were analyzed. Data analysis was performed from October 2021 to June 2022.”
Upon studying more than 110,000 shootings in 100 cities within the U.S., the findings determined that regional and climate-specific variations in daily temperature plays a major role in incident shootings than previously believed.
“These findings underscore the importance of heat adaptation strategies broadly throughout the year to reduce shootings, rather than focusing on only the hottest days.”
