The independent associations of recorded crime and perceived safety with physical health in a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of men and women in New Zealand

Abstract

ObjectivesWe investigated associations of officially recorded crime and perceived neighbourhood safety with physical health, evaluating potential effect modification by gender.SettingNationally representative population-based survey in New Zealand.ParticipantsIndividual-level data from 6995 New Zealand General Social Survey (2010–2011) participants with complete data on physical health status, perceived neighbourhood safety, sociodemographic characteristics and smoking. Crime rate for each participant's home census was estimated based on data from the New Zealand Police (2008–2010).Primary outcome measureThe Transformed Physical Composite Score from the SF-12, a physical health summary score based on self-report ranging from 0 to 100.ResultsWe used cluster robust multivariable regression models to examine the associations among neighbourhood crime rates, perceived neighbourhood safety and the physical health summary score. Crime rates predicted adults’ perception that it was unsafe to walk in their neighbourhood at night: for each additional crime per 100 000 residents adults were 1.9% more likely to perceive their neighbourhood as unsafe (95% CI 1.2% to 2.5%). While relatively uncommon, the rate of crime with a weapon strongly predicted perceived safety: for each additional crime per 100 000 residents in this category, adults were 12.9% more likely to report the neighbourhood as unsafe (95% CI 8.8% to 17.0%). Police-recorded violent and night crime rates were associated with worse physical health among women: for each additional crime per 100 000 residents in these category women had a 0.3 point lower physical health score (95% CIs −0.6 to −0.1 for violent crime and −0.5 to −0.1 for crime at night, gender interaction p values 0.08 and 0.01, respectively). Perceiving the neighbourhood as unsafe was independently associated with 1.0 point lower physical health score (95% CI −1.5 to −0.5).ConclusionsGender may modify the associations of officially recorded crime rates with physical health. Perceived neighbourhood safety was independently associated with physical health.

Police-Recorded Crime and Perceived Stress among Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: the Diabetes Study of Northern California (DISTANCE)

“…38 Another found that police-recorded crime in New Zealand was associated with worse health, but only for women. 39 In contrast to other studies, we did not find associations for any one particular gender overall, but rather for certain race groups in women. 35,39,40 This may be due to the diversity of our sample that is uncommon in other studies.…”

Is More Area-Level Crime Associated With More Sitting and Less Physical Activity? Longitudinal Evidence From 37,162 Australians

“…Neither the perceived risk of crime nor the fear of crime—probable mediators of the environmental impacts of crime on behavior—necessarily correlates strongly with actual crime reported within a locality (54). It is plausible that these subjective factors are influenced more by visual stimuli, such as instances of malicious damage, which may go some way toward explaining the stronger associations with sitting time observed in our study (47). Our previous research indicated that increasing area-level crime rates are associated with an increased risk of psychological distress (55), which is strongly associated with perceptions of safety (56, 57).…”

“…The Medical Outcomes Study Physical Functioning Scale is a 10-item scale that covers a range of activities, from basic actions needed for day-to-day living (e.g., bathing) to more vigorous activities (e.g., climbing stairs). Separate analyses were conducted for men and women, as previous research has indicated that area-level crime might influence health differentially by sex (47). We acknowledge at the outset that while the sex indicator available in our data was time-invariant, this was a methodological limitation, as gender is socially constructed and reflects, to a potentially large extent, clusters of social determinants that can change over time (48).…”

Social safety, self-rated general health and physical activity: Changes in area crime, area safety feelings and the role of social cohesion

“…Third, we would have preferred to include police crime registrations in addition to the reported crime we obtained from the survey data, but this information was not available at the postal code level. Official recorded crime rates and perceived crime are not strongly correlated (McGinn et al, 2008;Taylor and Shumaker, 1990) and may have a different impact on health (Lovasi et al, 2014;McGinn et al, 2008). Even though we controlled for individual differences in reported crime frequency by using ecometrics, including crime registries would have provided us with a more comprehensive measure of objective neighbourhood social safety.…”

“…One social characteristic that has received some attention in relation to health is the social safety of the neighbourhood. In some studies, social safety has been associated with depression and depressive symptoms and worse physical health, but the findings are inconclusive (Diez Roux and Mair, 2010;Lovasi et al, 2014;Polling et al, 2014;Lorenc et al, 2012).…”