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Background: Homicide presents a significant health burden globally, but geographical differences in homicide rates necessitate focussed analyses of spatial and temporal patterns, particularly in affected areas. The highest rates are concentrated in regions in Central and South America, but analyses of sub-regional patterns and sex-specific differences may yield important information for addressing the upstream causes of homicide at the community level., Objective: This study examines and presents spatial and temporal patterns of homicide victims from 2006 to 2015 in the state of Alagoas, Brazil, focussing on the municipality scale and differentiated by victims' sex., Methods: Data comprising victims' age, sex, the date, time, and the municipality of the homicide incident were acquired from the Brazilian National Mortality Information System. These data were aggregated by municipality, and we made quantitative comparisons of sex-specific homicide rates between the capital city of Macieó metropolitan region and the peripheral, predominantly rural regions. Empirical Local Bayes methods were used to adjust per-capita homicide risk estimates and map the results., Results: A total of 19,560 homicides occurred during the study period, with an average of 60.4 per 100,000 inhabitants; the metropolitan region rate was 81.8, compared to 46.5 for the remaining regions. The male homicide rate was 115.9 per 100,000, compared to 7.1 for females. Empirical Local Bayes mapping showed strong clustering of male homicide risk in specific cities near the capital, while female risk was more dispersed throughout the region., Conclusions: The risk of male victim homicide observed for the metropolitan region of Alagoas was amongst the highest globally, particularly during the period 2012-2014. Geographical differences in male and female risk may indicate differences in risk factors and highlight a need for prevention programmes that take into account gender-specific pathways of violence.

This paper presents an empirically grounded call for a more nuanced engagement and situatedness with placial characteristics within a spatial epidemiology frame. By using qualitative data collected through interviews and observation to parameterise standard and spatial regression models, and through a critical interpretation of their results, we present initial inroads for a situated spatial epidemiology and an analytical framework for health/medical geographers to iteratively engage with data, modelling, and the context of both the subject and process of analysis. In this study, we explore the socioeconomic factors that influence homicide rates in the Brazilian state of Alagoas from a critical public health perspective. Informed by field observation and interviews with 24 youths in low-income neighbourhoods and prisons in Alagoas, we derive and critically reflect on three regression models to predict municipal homicide rates from 2016-2020. The model results indicate significant effects for the male population, persons without elementary school completion, households with reported income, divorced persons, households without piped water, and persons working outside their home municipality. These results are situated in the broader socioeconomic context, trajectories, and cycles of inequality in the study area and underscore the need for integrative and contextually engaged mixed method study design in spatial epidemiology.

Background: Injury is a truly global health issue that has enormous societal and economic consequences in all countries. Interpersonal violence is now widely recognized as important global public health issues that can be addressed through evidence-based interventions. In South Africa, as in many low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), a lack of ongoing, systematic injury surveillance has limited the ability to characterize the burden of violence-related injury and to develop prevention programmes., Objective: To describe the profile of trauma presenting to the trauma centre of Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa - relating to interpersonal violence, using data collected from a newly implemented surveillance system. Particular emphasis was placed on temporal aspects of injury epidemiology, as well as age and sex differentiation., Design: Data were collected prospectively using a standardized trauma admissions form for all patients presenting to the trauma centre. An epidemiological analysis was conducted on 16 months of data collected from June 2010 to October 2011., Results: A total of 8445 patients were included in the analysis, in which the majority were violence-related. Specifically, 35% of records included violent trauma and, of those, 75% of victims were male. There was a clear temporal pattern: a greater proportion of intentional injuries occur during the night, while unintentional injury peaks late in the afternoon. In total, two-third of all intentional trauma is inflicted on the weekends, as is 60% of unintentional trauma. Where alcohol was recorded in the record, 72% of cases involved intentional injury. Sex was again a key factor as over 80% of all records involving alcohol or substance abuse were associated with males. The findings highlighted the association between violence, young males, substance use, and weekends., Conclusions: This study provides the basis for evidence-based interventions to reduce the burden of intentional injury. Furthermore, it demonstrates the value of locally appropriate, ongoing, systematic public health surveillance in LMIC.

Background: In 2002, the WHO declared interpersonal violence to be a leading public health problem. Previous research demonstrates that urban spaces with a high incidence of violent trauma (hotspots) correlate with features of built environment and social determinants. However, there are few studies that analyse injury data across the axes of both space and time to characterise injury-environment relationships. This paper describes a spatiotemporal analysis of violent injuries in Vancouver, Canada, from 2001 to 2008., Methods: Using geographic information systems, 575 violent trauma incidents were mapped and analysed using kernel density estimation to identify hotspot locations. Patterns between space, time, victim age and sex and mechanism of injury were investigated with an exploratory approach., Results: Several patterns in space and time were identified and described, corresponding to distinct neighbourhood characteristics. Violent trauma hotspots were most prevalent in Vancouver's nightclub district on Friday and Saturday nights, with higher rates in the most socioeconomically deprived neighbourhoods. Victim sex, age and mechanism of injury also formed strong patterns. Three neighbourhood profiles are presented using the dual axis of space/time to describe the hotspot environments., Conclusions: This work posits the value of exploratory spatial data analysis using geographic information systems in trauma epidemiology studies and further suggests that using both space and time concurrently to understand urban environmental correlates of injury provides a more granular or higher resolution picture of risk. We discuss implications for injury prevention and control, focusing on education, regulation, the built environment and injury surveillance.

Knowledge and experiences of violence transform the ways in which individuals perceive the urban landscape, construct and reproduce (un)safety, and make everyday decisions regarding mobility and the use of space. This knowledge and these experiences are placially anchored and are shaped by everyday regionalisations. In the context of interpersonal violence in Recife, Brazil, we examine the ways in which volunteered geographic information (VGI), formal and informal information exchange networks, and individual experience contribute to the reproduction of violent spaces. During interviews with civilian residents and police officers, we explore the knowledge and information flows and their spatial anchorings before and after presenting informants with a VGI-based map of firearms violence. Following coding, interviews were also analysed using a novel, semiautomated text mining algorithm to produce context-sensitive co-occurrence graphs of key arguments within participant narratives. The results indicate strong differences in the placial anchorings between police officers and civilians, and highlight key dynamics in the flows of VGI amongst residents and local news organisations, as well as through social media. These forms of placial knowledge exchange are in constant negotiation with individuals' perceptions and experiences of the study area and reflect cognitive-discursive reproductions of everyday geographies of (un)safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graffiti is a ubiquitous feature of the urban landscape commonly perceived to be a symptom of disorder, deprivation, and violence. Broken windows theory asserts that it is also a cause. To examine this, we conduct a geographic correlation study of graffiti and violence using geographic information systems. A strong spatial covariation is observed, with spatially dependent residual clusters suggesting that the graffiti–violence relationship is context dependent and varied. Ferrell and Weide's spot theory provides a lens for situating hot spots and facilitating a more nuanced interrogation of graffiti and violence in several Vancouver neighborhoods. We advocate for situated spatial analyses of interpersonal violence to inform public health interventions and advance policymaking beyond the popular aesthetic symbolism of urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The World Health Organization (2002) attributes over 1.6 million deaths annually to interpersonal violence. This public health challenge is inherently geographic in nature, as previous studies have confirmed spatial-temporal clustering of violent injuries within urban environments. This research uses trauma registry data to identify violent injury hotspots in Vancouver, British Columbia. Teams were dispatched to scan each hotspot for suspected environmental correlates identified in the literature (e.g., alcohol-serving establishments). Several key features of the built urban environment are found to be significant predictors of violent injury. Additionally, the Vancouver Area Neighbourhood Deprivation Index is used to examine the correlation of a socio-economic status with violent injury in the urban setting. The findings demonstrate that the environment-injury relationship is multiscalar and spatially complex, and helps challenge the notion that injury is a random occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]