Crime and health: a preliminary study into the effects of crime on the mental health of UK university students.

Accessible summary • Crime remains a major social problem in the UK (as well as in many other parts of the world). • The effects of crime on the health of victims (especially mental well-being), and how it affects their social behaviour (for example, whether or not victims become more socially isolated than they were before becoming a victim), is not well understood. • There are particular groups of people in society who are vulnerable to crime, one of which is university students. • This paper reports on a preliminary study of how crime affects the health (and social behaviour) of students from three universities in the UK. • The results from the study (which surveyed 886 students), indicate that for a sizable minority of the students who are victims of crime there are serious psychological negative effects. Furthermore, the fear of crime did appear to alter the social behaviour of a majority of the students (noticeably that of women). In this paper we report on the findings from a preliminary study in the UK into the effects of crime on health. The aim of the study was to investigate what victims of crime report to be the effects of both actual crime and the fear of crime on their physical and psychological health (as well as social well-being) and what actions they take (if any) to deal with these effects. A survey method was adopted using a modified version of the 'Health, Quality of Life and Crime Questionnaire' with 866 undergraduate student respondents from three UK universities. University students were selected as the sample population because, as a group, they form a specific 'victim community'. Conclusions extrapolated from the respondents' replies were first, there are serious negative health effects (particularly on psychological health) of a considerable minority of those students who are victims of crime. Second, the vast majority of the victims did not initiate any health intervention. Third, a large minority of the victims did not report the crime to the police. Fourth, a majority of both victims and non-victims suffered psychological negative effects from the fear of crime. Fifth, there is a huge gender imbalance among those affected by crime with female students much more fearful of crime than men. Moreover, female students were much more likely to use specific strategies to lower the risk of crime. These conclusions suggest that there may be important policy implications for universities, the police, victim support organizations and mental health services, regarding the effects of crime on students. This study is intended as a preliminary stage for subsequent in-depth and larger projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]