Relations between violence, calendar events and ambient conditions
Introduction
Public health approaches to violence and injury prevention focus on risk factors.8 They embrace the possibility that relatively unimportant risk factors and large structural factors may interact and that they provide opportunities for intervention.13 Many studies have correlated violence with socio-demographic offender and non-offender variables, such as age, gender, race, geographic location and economic status.7 These relatively stable criminological variables cannot explain short-term variations in violence and injury rates. In this study the focus of interest was time of violence-related injury: daily, weekly and monthly incidence of intentional injury and relationships with local ambient conditions, sporting events and annual celebrations.
Section snippets
Violence-related attendance, ambient conditions and calendar events
Prospective data relating to age, gender and attendance date for all those injured in violence who attended the only Accident and Emergency (A&E) department in Cardiff over a 5-year period from 1 May 1995 to 30 April 2000 were studied. At all times patient confidentiality was maintained. Violence-related A&E attendance were categorised by gender and five age groups: 0–10, 11–17, 18–30, 31–50 and >50 years. Flow of patients through A&E departments and stages of data capture were also studied.
Data recording in A&E department
The Patient Administrative System (PAS) was used to enter patient data. First point of contact was with triage personnel, before registration by the receptionist at which the reason for attendance, in this case, violence-related injury, was entered (Fig. 1). Patients were then referred to the A&E medical officer if required and further referral was made for treatment by specialists depending on each case. The outcomes were: discharge without further review, discharge with review in an
Discussion
Few theories have considered the immediate situational factors that may help explain why a particular criminal event occurred at a particular time. Situational approach to crime as well as rational choice theory, suggest that immediate crises, events and conditions are important factors in the offenders decision to commit a crime.2 The routine activity theory attempts to examine the relationship between climatic variables and criminal behaviour.3 This theory suggests that individual activity
Acknowledgements
V. Sivarajasingam was the principal author of the paper and retrieved Accident and Emergency department data. D. Corcoran and D. Jones retrieved data from the Cardiff meteorological centre, on holidays and sport fixtures and carried out most of the analysis. A. Ware and J. Shepherd designed and supervised the study. V. Sivarajasingam will act as overall guarantor.
References (15)
- et al.
Ambient temperature and the occurrence of collective violence: a new analysis
J. Personality Soc. Psychol.
(1979) - Clarke RV, Cornish DB. ‘Modelling offenders’ decisions: a framework for research and policy. In: Tonry M, Morris N,...
- et al.
Social change and crime rate trends: a routine activity approach
Am. Socio. Rev.
(1979) - et al.
Factors influencing criminal behaviour in Newark: a local study in forensic Psychiatry
J. Forensic Sci.
(1979) - et al.
Seasonality and assault: explorations in inter-neighbourhood variation, Dallas 1980
Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr.
(1984) - Mayhew P, Elliot D, Dowds L. The 1988 British crime survey. Home Office Research Study NO 111. London: HMSO;...
The impact of economic hardship on black families and children: psychological distress, parenting and socio-economic development
Child Dev.
(1992)
Cited by (21)
Is weather related to the number of assaults seen at emergency departments?
2017, InjuryCitation Excerpt :A number of authors have investigated the relationship between weather and assaults with differing results. Whilst studies that look at crime tend to find a relation between temperature [1–6], two UK studies [1,7] have found significant and positive correlations between daily (maximum & minimum) temperature and paediatric trauma admissions, but only a significant association for adult injuries with minimum temperature [7], whereas another study looking at ambient temperature and violence related ED attendance found no such relation [8]. A recent systematic literature review [9] found that increased temperature is positively correlated with trauma admissions and that paediatric trauma, both in respect of trauma admissions and fracture rate, is more sensitive to the weather than adult trauma.
Ecologic factors relating to firearm injuries and gun violence in Chicago
2016, Journal of Forensic and Legal MedicineCitation Excerpt :Similar to research employing crime data, studies analyzing trauma occurrence have varied in terms of their methodologies, their chosen ecological variables, and their conclusions. Depending on the type of trauma, numerous weather-related variables, including temperature and rainfall, were found to predict admissions in an Accident and Emergency (A&E) department in England,12 but not in an A&E department in Wales.13 In the US, Rising et al. (2006) found that temperature, rainfall, time of day, day of week, and month of year were all associated with trauma admissions to one hospital.14
Heat-Related Mortality
2013, Climate Vulnerability: Understanding and Addressing Threats to Essential ResourcesTrends in violence in England and Wales 2000-2004: An accident and emergency perspective
2009, InjuryCitation Excerpt :Similarly, the peak in violence in December is most likely due to the festive celebrations. An A&E based study to investigate the relationships between community violence, calendar events and ambient conditions concluded that temperature, rainfall and sunlight hours did not correlate with violence but that major sporting events were good predictors of A&E violence-related attendances.28 More people and greater alcohol consumption in town and city centres probably explain the greater number of assault patients seen at A&E departments in the summer and in December.
Seasonality of three dimensions of mania: Psychosis, aggression and suicidality
2008, Journal of Affective Disorders