RFA-CE-23-004: Structural factors Impacting community Violence (STRIVE): The Role of Minimum Wage, COVID-19, and Discrimination

ABSTRACT: Violent deaths are responsible for the most person-years of life lost among people 18 to 50 years old in the United States. Further, violence inflicts a disproportionate burden on racial and ethnic minorities in the US, thereby exacerbating existing health inequities, including those amplified by COVID-19. Although the physical distancing policies put in place to address the COVID-19 pandemic reduced social interactions, violence-related injury and homicides increased in 2020 in the US. Structural and policy interventions that target the social-ecological framework can attain sustainable reductions in multiple forms of violence. Given that poverty is one of the drivers of violence, increasing minimum wage may be a potent policy intervention for violence prevention. However, minimum wage increase laws have not been evaluated as a community violence prevention method. Further, several states increased minimum wage during 2020 and 2021, providing a unique opportunity to examine whether such increases can prevent community violence during the pandemic. Our study will address three important questions: 1) what role do minimum wage increases play in community violence prevention? 2) Does minimum wage increase or lack thereof differentially affect community violence among different demographic groups (race/ethnicity, sex, age, and rurality)? and 3) how has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted community violence and if state minimum wage (SMW) increases and economic impact payments (EIP) played a role in mitigating pandemic effects? To address these research gaps, our team will employ rigorous quasi-experimental designs (synthetic controls and controlled interrupted time series) with quantitative bias analyses, on six national datasets from 2000-2021 to capture community violence victimizations, assault injuries, and homicide deaths in all 50 states. We will then examine the interaction of minimum wage with income inequality measured using living wage. We will estimate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic itself, and the impact of state level increases in minimum wage during the pandemic on community violence outcomes. Through all these analyses we will examine disparities by race, sex, age, and rurality. This study is responsive to the RFA-CE-23-004's funding objective three to evaluate approaches that improve social or structural contributions that contribute to community violence and racial/ethnic inequities. This study will be the first to comprehensively assess the impact of minimum wage increases on violent victimizations, injuries, and homicide deaths and the racial, sex- and age-based, and geographical disparities therein. Further, this study will also be the first to examine how SMW increases and EIPs may have moderated the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on community violence in the US. We will employ state-of-the-art epidemiologic methods to build a strong evidence base to control and reduce the burden of community violence in the US. Understanding the impact of SMW increases, which greatly affect racialized minorities and women, will also provide guidance to reduce systemic inequities.