Local gun violence, mental health, and sleep

Abstract

Rationale: Community gun violence significantly shapes public health and collective well-being. Understanding how gun violence is associated with community health outcomes like mental health and sleep is crucial for developing interventions to mitigate disparities exacerbated by violence exposure. Objective: This study examines the associations between community gun violence , insufficient sleep, and poor mental health across neighborhoods in the United States. Methods: We utilized a novel database covering nearly 16,000 neighborhoods in 100 US cities from 2014 through 2019. Correlated trait fixed-effects models were employed to conduct all analyses while considering various neighborhood covariates such as concentrated disadvantage, demographic composition, population density, and proximity to trauma centers. Results: Our analysis revealed that greater gun violence is associated with both insufficient sleep and poor mental health in subsequent years. There is a reciprocal relationship between poor mental health and insufficient sleep, with each partially mediating the other's association with community gun violence. Notably, gun violence exhibits the strongest direct association with poor sleep rather than with poor mental health. We found a consistent reciprocal relationship between sleep and mental health at the community level. Conclusions: The findings highlight a complex interplay between community violence, sleep, and mental health, underlining the importance of reducing community violence through numerous long-term interventions to address health disparities across the US.