# Firearm Involvement Among Parents and Their Adolescent Children: A Prospective Longitudinal Study of At-Risk Youth

> **NIH NIH R01** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $617,982

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Firearm violence is an urgent public health problem. Despite declines in homicide and other violent crime,
firearms were involved in the crime-related deaths of more than 350,000 people in the United States in the
past decade. Young urban racial/ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected. In the Northwestern
Juvenile Project (NJP), our 16-year longitudinal study of juvenile offenders, we found that a large proportion
owned a gun, perpetrated firearm violence, and/or were victims of firearm violence. Many juvenile offenders
become parents when young; their children are at great risk for firearm involvement and victimization. Yet
there are remarkably few data on how parents' involvement with firearms—during their own adolescence and
young adulthood—influences their children's risk. We propose to leverage prospective data—already collected
on our original participants—to conduct the first large-scale study of how high-risk parents' current and past
involvement with firearms (ownership, perpetration of violence, and victimization) influences that of their
adolescent children. We will interview 900 participants: n=450 high-risk youth (children of adolescent
offenders), ages 12 to 15 years, and their parents, n=450. We chose ages 12 to 15 years because it is a critical
developmental period for the initiation of firearm involvement. We have 4 aims: (1) to examine patterns of
firearm involvement in urban high-risk adolescents (children of juvenile offenders, G2); (2) to examine their
parents' (G1) involvement with firearms; (3) to examine how parents' firearm involvement influences that of
their children; and (4) to identify risk and protective factors that moderate and mediate the relationship
between the parent and child's involvement with firearms. The proposed prospective study has several key
features: (1) the sample will include enough parents with a history of involvement with firearms (including
victimization and perpetration) to examine its influence on their children; (2) the sample is predominantly
socioeconomically disadvantaged African Americans and Hispanics, groups who face the most grievous
consequences of firearm violence; (3) the design will allow us to examine multilevel data on risk and protective
factors from individuals, families, peers, and communities; and (5) the study uses a mixed-methods approach
to identify protective factors that could be used as targets for developing innovative preventive interventions.
The investigation will provide data responding to: (1) the National Academy of Medicine's priorities for
research to reduce the threat of firearm-related violence; (2) Healthy People 2020's objective to reduce
firearm-related deaths or reduce weapon carrying by adolescents on school property; and (3) and the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention's priority to identify and evaluate strategies to decrease inappropriate
access to and use of weapons by minors, and to prevent lethal violence.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10009455
- **Project number:** 5R01HD093935-03
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** LINDA A TEPLIN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $617,982
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-01 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10009455

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10009455, Firearm Involvement Among Parents and Their Adolescent Children: A Prospective Longitudinal Study of At-Risk Youth (5R01HD093935-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10009455. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*