Professor Awarded $525K Fellowship to Study Impact of Gun Violence on Philadelphia’s Youth

Rutgers–Camden faculty member to explore the effect of childhood contact with gun exposure.

Daniel Semenza, associate professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice at Rutgers University–Camden and Director of Interpersonal Violence Research at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, has received a $525,000 research fellowship from the Stoneleigh Foundation. The Foundation aims to make effective efforts that address Philadelphia’s gun violence epidemic.

Over three years, Semenza will partner with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to study how direct and indirect exposure to gun violence influences the mental health of youth in Philadelphia, including their risk for suicidal ideation and self-harm behaviors.

Since 2015, the city of Philadelphia has experienced an annual average of roughly 1,700 shooting incidents, including more than 350 homicides per year. Non-fatal shootings and homicides rose steadily in Philadelphia for a decade, peaking in 2021 during the height of the pandemic.

Daniel Semenza

Associate Professor Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice

“Although shootings have decreased over the past three years, the level of violence in the city remains troublingly high. While exposure to interpersonal gun violence is linked to greater risk of suicidal ideation and self-harm behaviors among adults, there is currently no research on how this exposure may affect the risk of suicidality among youth.”

Semenza emphasized that examining how gun violence influences the risk of suicidality among young people can help to inform the development of age- and culturally appropriate prevention resources.

Vice Chancellor of Research at Rutgers–Camden Thomas Risch said, “Congratulations to Dan. His research will make an impact for good among the most vulnerable in our society.”

Semenza is the author of more than eighty peer-reviewed journal articles and his research has been featured in The New York Times, Newsweek, Forbes, The Guardian, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The L.A. Times, The Boston Globe, The Trace, CBS Face the Nation, PBS, and NPR. As part of this work, he has investigated the relationship between exposure to interpersonal violence and the risk of suicide, finding that many types of gun violence exposure are consequential for suicidal ideation and self-harm behaviors.

Learn more about the Fellowship through the Stoneleigh Foundation