Limitations
SECONDARY
First, the neighborhoods under intervention are geographically close to each other and social networks spanning across neighborhood are expected. Benefits received from the intervention among those in one neighborhood may affect those in another, which leads to the spillover of the treatment effect. Second, TRUE HAVEN is a non-blinded study due to practical considerations, and the sequenced time of initiation of the intervention across the neighborhoods are known. Although the primary outcome of gun violence incident rate is perhaps less at risk of bias from lack of blinding, certain secondary outcomes could result in bias due to non-blinding. Third, our study site is located in New Haven, CT, a northeast U.S. city, and has potentially limited generalizability to other locations where the causes of gun violence and the amount of community resources may be different. Fourth, there may be exogenous factors that affect rates of gun violence over the course of 5 years (e.g., changes in funding, elections of new political leaders) that make the results more difficult to interpret. We can use data from neighborhoods in similar Connecticut cities, Bridgeport and Hartford, that can serve as additional comparisons to identify secular trends.