The association between county-level injury rates and racial segregation revisited: A multilevel analysis

A. Fabio, E.K. Sauber-Schatz, K.E. Barbour and W. Li

American Journal of Public Health, 2009, vol. 99, issue 4, 748-753

Abstract: Objectives. We investigated whether within-county racial segregation was associated with increased odds of violent injury beyond individual risk. Methods. In a cross-sectional study, data on 75310 patients admitted with an injury to Pennsylvania hospitals from 1997 to 1999 were analyzed to determine the association between county-level racial segregation and violent injury. We used multilevel analysis to adjust for individual- and county-level factors. Principal components analysis allowed us to separate the effect of segregation from other county-level variables. Results. After adjustment, greater segregation was associated with increased odds of violent injury among Whites (odds ratio [OR]=1.20; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.11, 1.30) and non-Whites (OR=1.45; 95% CI=1.28, 1.64). The association was stronger for non-Whites. Conclusions. Our results suggested that living in a county with high levels of racial segregation was associated with increased odds of violence not explained by an individual's own risk. These findings represent an important step in understanding the nature of observed links between race and violence. Future work should develop prevention strategies that simultaneously target community and individual risks.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2008.139576

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2008.139576_4

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2008.139576

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia

More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().