Conducting Actionable Economic Policy Research to Address Community Violence Inequities

Firearm violence among Black youth is an escalating public health crisis in the United States, rooted in structural racism and racially unequal systems of economic governance. Economic security policies shape material conditions linked to violence risk, yet policy evaluation research rarely captures racialized barriers, realities of implementation, or conditions under which policy benefits are diluted or unevenly realized. As a result, population-level estimates may appear protective, null, or heterogeneous without clarifying why. We advance a sequential explanatory, community-engaged mixed-methods evaluation framework that integrates longitudinal, state-level quantitative analyses with ongoing Community Action Board (CAB)-guided interpretation, mechanism-focused qualitative inquiry, and structured triangulation to move from effect estimation to explanation and action. As illustrative examples, we use prior and ongoing studies focused on minimum wage laws, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This approach shifts the core question from whether a policy "works" on average, to how, for whom, and under what conditions economic security policies can function as violence prevention interventions for Black youth.