Environmental Correlates with Violent Injury

Abstract

Violence is a significant contributor to the global burden of injury, posing a public health challenge. With the goal of informing policy decisions, this work uses a combination of GIS and environmental scans to identify features of the built environment that correlate with areas of high violent injury incidence. Hotspots in the Metro Vancouver area were identified using kernel density estimation. Possible environmental correlates to violent injury were culled from a detailed literature review; teams then travelled to each hotspot to record which of the correlates were present (e.g., alcohol-serving establishments, high density housing). Several suspected features of the built urban environment were found to be present in the majority of hotspots, the most prevalent being alcohol-serving establishments. Using the Vancouver Area Neighbourhood Deprivation Index, a high proportion of hotspots were found to be in or near socially deprived neighbourhoods. However, the findings suggest that violent injury is a geographically complex phenomenon whose links to the built environment are multiscalar and varied. First steps are taken towards developing profiles of violent urban spaces, with ultimate goal of making our cities safer physical and social spaces.