Neighborhood Gun Violence, Epigenetics, and Pediatric Asthma
Overview
Gun violence is a pervasive feature of many neighborhoods across the United States, disproportionately concentrated in communities that already bear elevated burdens of poverty, racial residential segregation, and environmental disadvantage. This project examines gun violence not only as a source of acute trauma, but as a chronic structural stressor embedded in the neighborhood environments where adolescents live and develop — one whose biological and health consequences extend well beyond those directly involved in violent incidents. By situating gun violence exposure within a broader exposome framework, this project also attends to how co-occurring environmental stressors and exposures compound the health risks of living in structurally disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Current Work
One line of this project examines the epigenetic consequences of residential proximity to deadly gun violence during adolescence. Using geocoded longitudinal data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) linked to national gun violence incident data, I have documented that adolescents living in closer proximity to deadly gun violence exhibit accelerated biological aging, as measured by epigenetic clocks — and that this association follows a dose-response pattern sensitive to spatial proximity. These findings provide novel evidence that neighborhood gun violence functions as a chronic physiological stressor with measurable molecular consequences, independent of other dimensions of neighborhood disadvantage. This manuscript is currently under review.
A second line of work examines whether early-life exposure to neighborhood gun violence is associated with asthma incidence and burden. Asthma is a stress-sensitive respiratory condition with strong inflammatory underpinnings, and its prevalence is sharply patterned by neighborhood disadvantage and structural racism. This study extends the biological consequences of gun violence exposure beyond epigenetic aging to a developmentally appropriate chronic disease, linking structural neighborhood conditions to health trajectories that emerge across the transition from adolescence to adulthood. This manuscript is currently under review.
Future Directions
Future work in this area will extend beyond pre-constructed epigenetic clocks to examine the epigenome-wide DNA methylation signature of gun violence exposure, identifying specific biological pathways through which this neighborhood stressor operates. This work also aims to integrate a broader set of exposome measures — including environmental pollutants, policy-level factors such as state and local firearm regulations, and structural neighborhood characteristics — to characterize the cumulative environmental burden faced by adolescents in high-violence neighborhoods and its downstream health consequences. A particular emphasis will be on understanding how structural factors shape differential exposure to these stressors and amplify health disparities, along with identifying individual-, familial-, and community-level protective factors that buffer the health risks associated with early-life exposure to gun violence.
Selected Publications
Martz CD, Farina M, Fleckman J, Theall K, Ornelas L, Gasik R, Smith E, Mitchell C, Gaydosh L. Residential exposure to deadly gun violence and accelerated biological aging in a national sample of U.S. adolescents. Under review, Social Science & Medicine – Population Health.
Martz CD, Navas Nazario AA, Gaydosh L. Adolescent exposure to deadly neighborhood gun violence and asthma burden in early adulthood. Under review.
Connor Martz, PhD 