Citation

Hemenway DA, Vriniotis M, Johnson RM, Miller MC, Azrael DR. J. Adolesc. 2011; 34(5): 997-1003.

Affiliation

Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Injury Control Research Center, 677 Huntington Avenue, 3rd Fl., Boston, MA 02115, United States.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.adolescence.2010.11.008

PMID

21146203

Abstract

This paper investigates: (1) whether high school students overestimate gun carrying by their peers, and (2) whether those students who overestimate peer gun carrying are more likely to carry firearms. Data come from a randomly sampled survey conducted in 2008 of over 1700 high school students in Boston, MA. Over 5% of students reported carrying a gun, 9% of boys and 2% of girls. Students substantially overestimated the percentage of their peers who carried guns; the likelihood that a respondent carried a gun was strongly associated with their perception of the level of peer gun carrying. Most respondents believed it was easier for other youth to obtain guns than it was for them. Social marketing campaigns designed to lower young people's perceptions about the prevalence of peer gun carrying may be a promising strategy for reducing actual gun carrying among youth.

Language: en