The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #72451

John P Galvin, MS¹, Cody D. Stephens, MA², Elena D. Quintana, PhD¹, and Gary Slutkin, MD². (1) University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health, Chicago Project for Violence Prevention, 2121 West Taylor (M/C 922), Chicago, IL 60612, 312-654-8592, jgalvi1@uic.edu, (2) University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health, Chicago Project for Violence Prevention/CeaseFire, 1603 W. Taylor, Chicago, IL 60612

Early childhood exposure to violence has been proven to be predictive of future aggressive behaviors and victimization. Assessing a child’s exposure to violence, therefore, is an important measure in determining their level of risk of future injury and in implementing injury interventions. Current methods are dependent on self-report measures, which may lack the accuracy and reliability needed to determine true exposure and risk. PURPOSE: To determine if the use of geographical information systems can integrate information from police reports, surveys and census data -- providing investigators with an accurate measure of community-level violence exposure. PROCEDURE: This study combined geographical information of reported violent crimes in the city of Chicago with participants’ self-reported data from a violence exposure survey, which included geographical location of participant. With the use of geographical information system (GIS) software we produced a high -resolution violence exposure map on the census tract level, which allowed us to define low- to high-risk communities. RESULTS: Our analysis shows that the self-reported crime exposure did not correlate with actual report violent crimes. We also found that self-reported sense of safety was not proportional to the amount violent crime reported in their communities. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings have led us to conclude that that geographical information system allows both an accurate and efficient measure of true violence exposure, while self-report data remains an important measure of awareness and attitudes. The use of GIS will greatly improve our power to evaluate interventions, inform public health researchers, and guide policymakers.

Learning Objectives:

• To recognize how the use of geographical information systems can providing investigators with an accurate measure of community-level violence exposure.
• To articulate the method for integrating and analyzing multiple sources of injury information from one thematic map.
• To develop an injury risk-exposure map for a high-risk community.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.