310632
Neighborhood level pedestrian injury surveillance: Using GIS as a platform for merging multiple datasets for small scale surveillance
Pedestrian crash injuries result in disability and death, and are a significant public health concern. Data available on pedestrian injuries at the state, county, and even city-level are too broad for individual neighborhoods to use for prevention strategy planning. The purpose of this project was to determine injury risk at the neighborhood level for the city of Newark, NJ by integrating multiple data sources.
Methods
Data was gathered from multiple sources, including the Newark Board of Education (student enrollment, school location), the US Census (population estimates, motor vehicle estimates, roads), the NJDEP (city boundaries, land use), the NJDOT (pedestrian crash locations), and the NJTC (injury severity for all records that could be matched to police crash reports or with known crash locations) and was merged using ArcGIS v. 10. Neighborhoods were defined as any overlapping area within a quarter mile radius of a public elementary school. Risk was determined based on pedestrian injury incidence weighted by population and roads.
Results/Outcomes
Using a quarter mile radius surrounding elementary school locations, 14 distinct neighborhoods were identified in Newark, representing the residential areas of the city. Neighborhood specific pedestrian injury incidence ranged from 5 to 26 injuries/ 1,000 residents, 0 to 2.5 clinically severe injuries /1,000 residents, and 3 to 11 injuries/ mile of road, identifying areas in need of prevention.
Conclusions
Neighborhood-centric surveillance is valuable for highlighting high risk areas which can be overlooked when looking at large scale rates. Our method generated residential areas of concern that could be overlooked in traditional “hot-spot” mapping.
Learning Areas:
EpidemiologyOther professions or practice related to public health
Public health or related research
Learning Objectives:
Discuss the necessity to use small-scale neighborhood-centric injury surveillance for community based injury prevention programs.
Keyword(s): Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Prevention
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a registered nurse who has completed a MPH as well as a certificate in Geographic Information Sciences. I have worked within the Department of Surgery at New Jersey Medical School on injury related public health research and program development.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.