Social determinants of health are factors not related to medicine that can influence a person’s health outcomes. That means the conditions in which they are born and raised, work, live and age. These determinants also include larger forces and systems that shape a person’s quality of life, especially racism.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services puts the determinants into five main categories: economic stability; education access and quality; health care access and quality; neighborhood and built environments; and social and community context.
Firearm violence can cause considerable disruption within each of those determinants. How good or bad someone’s quality of life is puts them at a lesser or greater risk of being the victim or perpetrator of a shooting. That means the conditions in which they live, the schools in their neighborhoods and whether or not they have a job, stable housing, a strong support system, and access to care or quality foods. Firearm violence rates can be closely related to these issues. For example, if a community has a high unemployment rate, it’s likely to also deal with a high rate of shootings.