Novel Linkage of Individual and Geographic Data to Study Firearm Violence

Abstract

Firearm violence is the end result of a causative web of individual-level and geographic risk factors. Few, if any, studies of firearm violence have been able to simultaneously determine the population-based relative risks that individuals experience as a result of what they were doing at a specific point in time and where they were, geographically, at a specific point in time. This paper describes the linkage of individual and geographic data that was undertaken as part of a population-based case-control study of firearm violence in Philadelphia. New methods and applications of these linked data relevant to researchers and policymakers interested in firearm violence are also discussed. AbstractFirearm violence is the end result of a causative web of individual-level and geographic risk factors. Few, if any, studies of firearm violence have been able to simultaneously determine the population-based relative risks that individuals experience as a result of what they were doing at a specific point in time and where they were, geographically, at a specific point in time. This paper describes the linkage of individual and geographic data that was undertaken as part of a population-based case-control study of firearm violence in Philadelphia. New methods and applications of these linked data relevant to researchers and policymakers interested in firearm violence are also discussed.

Modifiable Neighborhood Features Associated With Adolescent Homicide

“…To maximize participation and avoid nonresponse and other selection biases, DataStat used multiple recruitment strategies. 18 , 21 Based on American Association for Public Opinion standard formulae, the cooperation rate for control participants was 73.4% and the response rate was 52.3%, 22 which are as high or higher than rates achieved by other representative, random-sample surveys. 23-26 …”

Acute Alcohol Consumption, Alcohol Outlets, and Gun Suicide

“…Basic data for eligible cases were sent through wireless to the University of Pennsylvania, where study leaders forwarded them to a survey research firm for recruitment of a matched control. More detailed information for each enrolled case was later filled in using additional data from police, medical examiner, emergency medical services, and hospital data sources (Branas, Culhane, & Wiebe, 2008). …”

“…Prior case–control work on gun injury (Kellermann et al, 1992), as well as other early injury case–control studies (Haddon, Valien, McCarroll, & Umberger, 1961), has pair-matched cases and controls on location, something that we purposely did not do because it would have likely produced bias toward the null due to overmatching (by increasing the number of case–control matches with noninformative, same exposures to outlets, thus increasing variability and reducing statistical significance) and because we also wanted to study the effects of location with respect to alcohol outlets (Branas et al, 2008). …”

Unrelenting violence

“…This is especially true for the vast majority of patients who sustain nonfatal GSW injuries. We believe that contemporaneous and real-time direct data linkages, which contain the health care information, incident circumstances, victim-offender relationships, as well as gang and drug affiliations, are both possible 25 and remain largely unexplored. These data could be exceedingly useful to form and shape public policy and prevention strategies.…”