Youth, Place, and Shootings: Environmental and Institutional Correlates of Juvenile Shooting Victimization in Philadelphia

= 2,775 incidents). Using tract-level data on socioeconomic conditions, racial composition, environmental stressors, and public facilities, the analysis examines associations between these factors and the frequency of youth shootings. Global Poisson regression results indicated that higher tract-level measures of concentrated disadvantage, heat vulnerability, and the number of schools were associated with significantly more youth shooting victims, while a higher percentage of park land was associated with fewer incidents. Geographically Weighted Poisson Regression (GWPR) revealed substantial spatial heterogeneity in these relationships. For example, the effect of disadvantage varied from non-significant to strongly positive across neighborhoods, and the impact of schools and parks differed by location. These findings suggest that community characteristics influencing youth firearm victimization do not operate uniformly across urban space. Efforts to reduce juvenile victimization may benefit from geographically targeted strategies that account for localized variation in structural and environmental risk factors.