An Emerging Racial Disparity in US Motor Vehicle Fatalities.

This cohort study examines an increase in motor vehicle fatality rates for Black individuals in the US beginning in 2014 compared with White individuals.

Understanding Vaccine Hesitancy in U.S. Prisons: Perspectives from a Statewide Survey of Incarcerated People.

Much of the American response to the COVID-19 pandemic was characterized by a divergence between general public opinion and public health policy. With little attention paid to individuals incarcerated during this time, there is limited direct evidence regarding how incarcerated people perceived efforts to mediate the harms of COVID-19. Prisons operate as a microcosm of society in many ways but they also face unique public health challenges. This study examines vaccine hesitancy-and acceptance-among a sample of individuals incarcerated within adult prisons in Pennsylvania. Using administrative records as well as rich attitudinal data from a survey of the incarcerated population, this study identifies a variety of social and historical factors that are-and are not-associated with an incarcerated person's willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Our findings highlight vaccination challenges unique to the carceral context and offer policy recommendations to improve trust in credible health messengers and health service provision for this often overlooked but vulnerable population.

Overdose Prevention Centers, Crime, and Disorder in New York City.

Importance: The first government-sanctioned overdose prevention centers (OPCs) in the US opened in New York City (NYC) in November 2021 amid concerns that they may increase crime and disorder, representing a significant political challenge to OPCs. Objective: To identify whether opening the first 2 government-sanctioned OPCs in the US was associated with changes in crime and disorder. Design, Setting, and Participants: In this cohort study, difference-in-differences Poisson regression models were used to compare crime, residents' requests for assistance for emergencies and nuisance complaints, and police enforcement in the vicinity of NYC's 2 OPCs with those around 17 other syringe service programs that did not offer overdose prevention services from January 1, 2019, through December 31, 2022. Main Outcomes and Measures: Changes in the volume of crimes reported by the public or observed by police; arrests for drug possession and weapons; 911 calls and 311 calls regarding crime, public nuisances, and medical events; and summonses issued by police for criminal infractions in both the immediate vicinity of the sites (ie, a hexagonal area spanning about 6 city blocks) and their wider neighborhoods (ie, a tesselated 3-hexagon array spanning about 18 city blocks). Results: No significant changes were detected in violent crimes or property crimes recorded by police, 911 calls for crime or medical incidents, or 311 calls regarding drug use or unsanitary conditions observed in the vicinity of the OPCs. There was a significant decline in low-level drug enforcement, as reflected by a reduction in arrests for drug possession near the OPCs of 82.7% (95% CI, -89.9% to -70.4%) and a reduction in their broader neighborhoods of 74.5% (95% CI, -87.0% to -50.0%). Significant declines in criminal court summonses issued in the immediate vicinity by 87.9% (95% CI, -91.9% to -81.9%) and in the neighborhoods around the OPCs by 59.7% (95% CI, -73.8% to -38.0%) were observed. Reductions in enforcement were consistent with the city government's support for the 2 OPCs, which may have resulted in a desire not to deter clients from using the sites by fear of arrest for drug possession. Conclusions and Relevance: In this difference-in-differences cohort study, the first 2 government-sanctioned OPCs in the US were not associated with significant changes in measures of crime or disorder. These observations suggest the expansion of OPCs can be managed without negative crime or disorder outcomes.

No ground truth? No problem: Improving administrative data linking using active learning and a little bit of guile.

While linking records across large administrative datasets ["big data"] has the potential to revolutionize empirical social science research, many administrative data files do not have common identifiers and are thus not designed to be linked to others. To address this problem, researchers have developed probabilistic record linkage algorithms which use statistical patterns in identifying characteristics to perform linking tasks. Naturally, the accuracy of a candidate linking algorithm can be substantially improved when an algorithm has access to "ground-truth" examples-matches which can be validated using institutional knowledge or auxiliary data. Unfortunately, the cost of obtaining these examples is typically high, often requiring a researcher to manually review pairs of records in order to make an informed judgement about whether they are a match. When a pool of ground-truth information is unavailable, researchers can use "active learning" algorithms for linking, which ask the user to provide ground-truth information for select candidate pairs. In this paper, we investigate the value of providing ground-truth examples via active learning for linking performance. We confirm popular intuition that data linking can be dramatically improved with the availability of ground truth examples. But critically, in many real-world applications, only a relatively small number of tactically-selected ground-truth examples are needed to obtain most of the achievable gains. With a modest investment in ground truth, researchers can approximate the performance of a supervised learning algorithm that has access to a large database of ground truth examples using a readily available off-the-shelf tool.

Comparing Risks of Firearm-Related Death and Injury Among Young Adult Males in Selected US Cities With Wartime Service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Importance: In 2020, homicides in the United States saw a record single-year increase, with firearm injuries becoming the leading cause of death for children, adolescents, and young adults. It is critical to understand the magnitude of this crisis to formulate an effective response. Objective: To evaluate whether young adult males living in parts of 4 major US cities faced a firearm-related death and injury risk comparable with risks encountered during recent wartime service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Design, Setting, and Participants: In this cross-sectional study of young adult males aged 18 to 29 years living in the top 10% most violent zip codes in each domestic setting (as measured by fatal shooting rates), fatal and nonfatal shooting data for 2020 and 2021 were aggregated at the zip code level for 4 of the largest US cities (Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; New York, New York; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). Wartime mortality and combat injury rates for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were used to assess relative risk. Main Outcomes and Measures: The relative risk of firearm-related death and nonfatal shootings in each setting as compared with combat death and injury in the comparator setting. Results: Of 129 826 young adult males aged 18 to 29 years living in the top 10% most violent zip codes in the 4 cities studied, 45 725 (35.2%) were Black, 71 005 (54.7%) were Hispanic, and 40 355 (31.1%) were White. Among this population, there were 470 homicides and 1684 firearm-related injuries. Young adult males living in the most violent zip code of Chicago (2585 individuals aged 20-29 y) and Philadelphia (2448 individuals aged 18-29 y) faced a higher risk of firearm-related homicide than US soldiers who were deployed to Afghanistan, with risk ratios of 3.23 (95% CI, 2.47-4.68) and 1.91 (95% CI, 1.32-3.46), respectively. In expanding the analysis to the top 10% of the cities' most violent zip codes, the risks in Chicago likewise exceeded those of combat death faced by military service members, with a risk ratio of 2.10 (95% CI, 1.82-2.46), and the risks in Philadelphia were comparable with those of deployment to war 1.15 (95% CI, 0.98-1.39). Nonfatal shooting risks were comparable with, or exceeded, the injury risk of combat in Iraq, producing a combined annual firearm risk of 5.8% in Chicago and 3.2% in Philadelphia. However, these findings were not observed in the most violent zip codes of Los Angeles and New York City, where young men faced a 70% to 91% lower risk than soldiers in the Afghanistan war across fatal and nonfatal categories (eg, fatal shooting in most violent zip code in Los Angeles: risk ratio, 0.30; 95% CI, 0.26-0.34; nonfatal shooting in top 10% most violent zip codes in New York: risk ratio, 0.09; 95% CI, 0.08-0.10). The risk of violent death and injury observed in the zip codes studied was almost entirely borne by individuals from minoritized racial and ethnic groups: Black and Hispanic males represented 96.2% of those who were fatally shot (452 individuals) and 97.3% of those who experienced nonfatal injury (1636 individuals) across the 4 settings studied. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cross-sectional study, for young adult men in several of the communities studied, firearm violence carried morbidity and mortality risks that exceeded those of war. Health equity requires prioritizing effective responses.

Activity-adjusted crime rates show that public safety worsened in 2020.

This paper argues that changes in human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic led to an unusual divergence between crime rates and victimization risk in US cities. Most violent crimes declined during the pandemic. However, analysis using data on activity shows that the risk of street crime victimization was elevated throughout 2020. People in public spaces were 15 to 30% more likely to be robbed or assaulted. This increase is unlikely to be explained by changes in crime reporting or selection into outdoor activities by potential victims. Traditional crime rates may present a misleading view of the recent changes in public safety.

Police Force Size and Civilian Race.

We report novel empirical estimates of the race-specific effects of larger police forces in the United States. Each additional police officer abates approximately 0.1 homicides. In per capita terms, effects are twice as large for Black versus White victims. Larger police forces also make fewer arrests for serious crimes, with larger reductions for crimes with Black suspects, implying that police force growth does not increase racial disparities among the most serious charges. At the same time, larger police forces make more arrests for low-level "quality-of-life" offenses, with effects that imply a disproportionate impact for Black Americans.

More sneezing, less crime? Health shocks and the market for offenses.

A large literature points out that exposure to criminal victimization has far-reaching effects on public health. What remains surprisingly unexplored is that role that health shocks play in explaining aggregate fluctuations in offending. This research finds novel evidence that crime is sensitive to health shocks. We consider the responsiveness of crime to a pervasive and common health shock which we argue shifts costs and benefits for offenders and victims: seasonal allergies. Leveraging daily variation in city-specific pollen counts, we present evidence that violent crime declines in U.S. cities on days in which the local pollen count is unusually high and that these effects are driven by residential violence. While past literature suggests that property crimes have more instrumental motives, require planning, and hence are particularly sensitive to permanent changes in the cost and benefits of crime, we find that violence may be especially sensitive to health shocks.

The relation of the perceived environment to fear, physical activity, and health in public housing developments: evidence from Chicago.

Within the realm of active living in urban neighborhoods in the United States, only a few studies have addressed the factors that promote or inhibit active living among residents in public housing. This paper examines the environmental and interpersonal factors associated with active living and health in public housing. We specifically examine the environmental predictors of fear of crime, and whether fear is related to moderate physical activity, and in turn, health and obesity. The analysis drew upon data from a sample of 328 African-American residents living in two severely distressed public housing developments in 2007. Structural equation modeling was used to calculate a path model of direct and indirect effects. Perceptions of violence were positively associated with fear, and both fear and physical activity predicted health. However, neither fear nor physical activity was associated with obesity. We discuss the implications of these findings for improving the quality of life of disadvantaged residents living in high-crime neighborhoods.

Fear of walking outdoors. A multilevel ecologic analysis of crime and disorder.

BACKGROUND: Although a number of studies have tested ecologic models that postulate relationships among social networks, the built environment, and active living, few neighborhood-based studies have considered the role of crime and violence. This study investigates the degree to which individual-level demographic characteristics and neighborhood-level physical and social characteristics are associated with increased fear of crime. METHODS: Data were analyzed in 2007 from a 2005 survey of 901 randomly selected individuals living in 55 neighborhoods in Washington DC. Multilevel ordered logit regression was used to examine associations between individual-level and neighborhood-level characteristics and how often fear of crime prevents a respondent from walking outdoors. RESULTS: Age and female gender were associated with an increase in fear; the percentage of a resident's life spent in the same neighborhood was associated with a decrease in fear. Results of cross-level interactions showed that at the neighborhood level, women were more fearful than men in neighborhoods without violence, but that the difference in fear between men and women shrinks as neighborhood violence increases. Collective efficacy was found to increase fear among black respondents and had no effect on fear among nonblack respondents. CONCLUSIONS: If the study of neighborhoods and active living is to progress and contribute to both etiologic understanding and policy formation, it is essential that theoretical and empirical models consider the impact of violence and fear on walking. Efforts to increase active living in urban neighborhoods that do not account for the impact of crime and fear may fall short of their intended outcomes.