Linking emergency care and police department data to strengthen timely information on violence-related paediatric injuries. Emerg Med J 2023 Sep;40(9):653-659
Date
08/24/2023Pubmed ID
37611955DOI
10.1136/emermed-2023-213370Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85168624284 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)Abstract
BACKGROUND: Combined ED and police department (PD) data have improved violence surveillance in the UK, enabling significantly improved prevention. We sought to determine if the addition of emergency medical service (EMS) data to ED data would contribute meaningful information on violence-related paediatric injuries beyond PD record data in a US city.
METHODS: Cross-sectional data on self-reported violence-related injuries of youth treated in the ED between January 2015 and September 2016 were combined with incidents classified by EMS as intentional interpersonal violence and incidents in which the PD responded to a youth injury from a simple or aggravated assault, robbery or sexual offence. Nearest neighbour hierarchical spatial clustering detected areas in which 10 or more incidents occurred during this period (hotspots), with the radii of the area being 1000, 1500, 2000 and 3000 ft. Overlap of PD incidents within ED&EMS hotspots (and vice versa) was calculated and Spearman's r tested statistical associations between the data sets, or ED&EMS contribution to PD violence information.
RESULTS: There were 935 unique ED&EMS records (ED=381; EMS=554). Of these, 877 (94%) were not in PD records. In large hotspots >2000 ft, ED&EMS records identified one additional incident for every three in the PD database. ED and EMS provided significant numbers of incidents not reported to PD. Significant correlations of ED&EMS incidents in PD hotspots imply that the ED&EMS incidents are as pervasive across the city as that reported by PD. In addition, ED and EMS provided unique violence information, as ED&EMS hotspots never included a majority (>50%) of PD records. Most (676/877; 77%) incidents unique to ED&EMS records were within 1000 ft of a school or park.
CONCLUSIONS: Many violence locations in ED and EMS data were not present in PD records. A combined PD, ED and EMS database resulted in new knowledge of the geospatial distribution of violence-related paediatric injuries and can be used for data-informed and targeted prevention of violence in which children are injured-especially in and around schools and parks.
Author List
Hernandez-Meier J, Xu Z, Kohlbeck SA, Levas M, Shepherd J, Hargarten SAuthors
Sara Kohlbeck PhD, MPH Assistant Professor in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine department at Medical College of WisconsinMichael Levas MD Professor in the Pediatrics department at Medical College of Wisconsin
MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AdolescentChild
Cross-Sectional Studies
Emergency Medical Services
Emergency Treatment
Humans
Police
Violence
