In-home firearm access among US adolescents and the role of religious subculture: Results from a nationally representative study

Samuel Stroope; Joshua C Tom

doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2017.06.001

In-home firearm access among US adolescents and the role of religious subculture: Results from a nationally representative study

Soc Sci Res. 2017 Sep:67:147-159. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2017.06.001. Epub 2017 Jun 6.

Authors

Samuel Stroope¹, Joshua C Tom²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Sociology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, United States. Electronic address: sstroope@lsu.edu.
² Department of Sociology, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA, United States; Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States.

PMID: 28888283
DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2017.06.001

Abstract

Religious participation is linked to numerous positive safety outcomes for adolescents. Scant attention, however, has been paid to associations between religious participation and safety risks among adolescents. Using data from Add Health (N = 18,449), a nationally representative school-based sample of US adolescents, this study examines the relationship between adolescents' religious affiliation and easy access to firearms at home. Regression analyses adjust for complex sampling design and compare easy firearm access at home among conservative Protestant adolescents to adolescent firearm access in other religious traditions. Conservative Protestant adolescents have a substantially greater likelihood of easy access to a gun at home compared to adolescents of all other major religious traditions in the United States. Recognizing differences in adolescent firearm access between subcultural groups can help public health interventions more effectively identify and address the needs of vulnerable populations. The paper's conclusion considers suggestions for effective policy and programmatic initiatives.