Serious Assault Victim and Incident Characteristics Associated With Police Notification and Treatment in Emergency Rooms in Rural, Suburban, and Urban Areas

Abstract

Two common sources of violence rates are police data and hospital data on injuries. It is unclear, however, if violence rates calculated using these sources have the same meaning across location types like rural, suburban, and urban areas. We know that characteristics of assault victims and incidents are associated with whether or not the victim reports the incident to the police. If community type moderates this help-seeking behavior—for example, if the impact of sex, age, race, victim–offender relationship, or injury severity on reporting to the police or being treated in an emergency room (ER) is different in rural relative to urban areas—then this selection bias is problematic for comparisons across location type and for including different location types in the same sample. The goal of this study was to determine which victim and incident characteristics are associated with police notification and ER treatment and to see if these characteristics are the same across rural, suburban, and urban areas. We used National Crime Victimization Survey data on reporting serious assaults to the police and being treated in an ER as a result of a serious assault. Results revealed that (1) police notification is much more likely to occur than ER treatment, (2) a majority of victim and incident characteristics are significantly associated with police notification, (3) few victim and incident characteristics are significantly associated with ER treatment, and (4) there is only chance moderation by location type. Findings suggest that both police and hospital data on serious assaults can be used to make comparisons across rural, suburban, and urban communities without being limited by disproportionate inclusion or exclusion of incidents associated with victim and incident characteristics. However, comparisons between the two data sources should be made with caution due to the different victim and incident characteristics associated with police notification and ER treatment.