Gun deaths in the U.S. have been driving down black life expectancy at a significantly higher rate than for white Americans. That’s according to a new study led by Boston University researchers, funded by the National Institute of Justice.Co-author Bindu Kalesan is an epidemiologist and data scientist at Boston University. She said plenty is already known about the rates of gun deaths for different racial groups in the U.S.“But what we don’t do is to understand when they die,” said Kalesan, “whether they die early or whether they die young.”The age people die matters: If a significant number of black 15-year-olds get shot and killed, it brings down the overall life expectancy for black Americans.So the study takes a fresh look at data of firearms-related deaths from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2000-2016.“What we found was a magnitude of difference in life expectancy loss at birth among white Americans versus black Americans,” said Kalesan.The study shows black Americans are much more likely to be killed by a gun before reaching age 20, while white Americans are more likely to commit suicide with a gun later in life.
