Characterizing Community and Collective Firearm-Related Homicides among Puerto Rican Men to Identify Opportunities for Intervention Development

Abstract

Firearm-related homicides in Puerto Rico (PR) represent a pressing public health issue that is driven by unique social, political, and economic factors. The WHO has proposed a typology for investigating violence, distinguishing between collective and community origins. This project uses this framework to characterize firearm-related homicides in PR from 2017-2022. We will employ a combination of computational and statistical tools to analyze firearm homicides using data from the National Violent Death Reporting System. We will distinguish between community and collective violence by applying Natural Language Processing algorithms to the text narratives of decedents in this mortality registry. We will then use multilevel statistical models to explore differences in characteristics among PR-born homicide victims who died on the island versus in the continental US. We will interview and collaborate with local stakeholders to begin to translate these quantitative findings in support of the development of contextually-relevant strategies for addressing firearm-related homicide in PR. In sum, using a combination of computational, statistical, and qualitative methods, this project will explore individual and contextual correlates of violence among Puerto Rican firearm-related homicide decedents. Partnerships with local stakeholders will guide the translation of these findings into actionable insights, including informing future external grant submissions.