The Spatial Distribution of Alcohol Outlets and Assaultive Violence in the City of Philadelphia: Developing a New Spatial Scan Statistic

• Activity Number: 674
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 4, 2011 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
• Author(s): Loni Philip Tabb*+ and Tony H. Grubesic and William Alex Pridemore and Alan Murray
• Companies: Drexel University and Drexel University and Indiana University and Arizona State University
• Keywords: spatial ; scan statistic ; Bayesian ; disease mapping ; alcohol outlet ; violence

Abstract

The distribution of alcohol outlets has been long linked to violent crime, particularly in urban areas. Because alcohol related crime and violence pose a serious threat to the general public's health, more work needs to be carried out to understand the spatial distribution of both alcohol outlets and violence. The purpose of this paper is to not only present a novel spatial scan statistic that identifies spatial clusters, but also use a Bayesian disease mapping framework to address this relationship between alcohol outlets and violent crime. Using Philadelphia block groups, we are able to analyze the patterns of violence while adjusting for the spatial density of alcohol outlets as well as important neighborhood characteristics. Policy implications are also discussed.