Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Place-Based Interventions and the Epidemiology of Violence Prevention

  • Injury Epidemiology (A Rowhani-Rahbar, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Epidemiology Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Violence is a leading cause of death, disability, and health inequity in the United States. This review summarizes the scientific literature on place-based interventions and violence, describes study design challenges, and suggests future directions for this group of interventions.

Recent Findings

Violence prevention strategies commonly target high-risk individuals, but recent research has found that place-based interventions are practical, sustainable, and high-impact opportunities that benefit communities at large. This body of work has largely consisted of quasi-experimental studies of land and building place-based interventions and interpersonal violence.

Summary

Current epidemiological evidence suggests that place-based interventions are cost-effective solutions for violence prevention. Future work is needed using mixed methods to better understand their mechanisms of action and to inform implementation efforts. There are opportunities for the broader development of implementation science to bring promising and established place-based interventions to scale and to extend these interventions to other types of violence.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance

  1. CDC Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html. Accessed 1 Feb 2021

  2. Sharkey P. The long reach of violence: a broader perspective on data, theory, and evidence on the prevalence and consequences of exposure to violence. Annu Rev Criminol. 2018;1:85–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Finkelhor D. Childhood victimization: violence, crime, and abuse in the lives of young people. New York: Oxford University Press; 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Margolin G, Gordis EB. Children’s exposure to violence in the family and community. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2004;13:152–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Menard S, Weiss AJ, Franzese RJ, Covey HC. Types of adolescent exposure to violence as predictors of adult intimate partner violence. Child Abuse Negl. 2014;38:627–39.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Branas CC, MacDonald JM. A simple strategy to transform health, all over the place. J Public Health Manag Pract. 2014;20:157–9.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Frumkin H, Jackson RJ, Dannenberg AL, editors. Making healthy places: designing and building for health, well-being, and sustainability. Washington, D.C: Island Press; 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Corburn J. Challenges in reconnecting urban planning and public health. Am J Public Health. 2004;94:541–6.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Institute of Medicine. An integrated framework for assessing the value of community-based prevention. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press; 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Rose G. Sick individuals and sick populations. Int Journal of Epidemiology. 2001;30:427–32.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Frieden TR. A framework for public health action: the health impact pyramid. Am J Public Health. 2010;100:590–5.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Kondo MC, Andreyeva E, South EC, MacDonald JM, Branas CC. Neighborhood interventions to reduce violence. Annu Rev Public Health. 2018;39:253–71.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Branas C, Rubin D, Guo W. Vacant properties and violence in neighborhoods. ISRN Public Health. 2013;2012(246142):1–23.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Kelling GL, Coles CM. Fixing broken windows: restoring order and reducing crime in our communities. New York: Martin Kessler Books; 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Kelling GL, Wilson JQ. Broken windows: the police and neighborhood safety. Atl Mon. 1982;249:29–38.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Newman O. Defensible space: crime prevention through urban design. New York: Macmillan; 1972.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Taylor RB, Gottfredson SD, Brower S. Block crime and fear: defensible space, local social ties, and territorial functioning. J Res Crime Delinq. 1984;21:303–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Perkins DD, Wandersman A, Rich RC, Taylor RB. The physical environment of street crime: defensible space, territoriality and incivilities. J Environ Psychol. 1993;13:29–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Ludwig J, Duncan GJ, Gennetian LA, Katz LF, Kessler RC, Kling JR, Sanbonmatsu L. Neighborhood effects on the long-term well-being of low-income adults. Science. 2012;337:1505–10.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  20. Wilkerson I. The warmth of other suns: the epic story of America’s Great Migration. New York, NY: Vintage; 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Sampson N, Nassauer J, Schulz A, Hurd K, Dorman C, Ligon K. Landscape care of urban vacant properties and implications for health and safety: lessons from photovoice. Health Place. 2017;46:219–28.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Branas CC, Cheney RA, MacDonald JM, Tam VW, Jackson TD, Ten Have TR. A difference-in-differences analysis of health, safety, and greening vacant urban space. Am J Epidemiol. 2011;174:1296–306.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  23. Johnson SD, Guerette RT, Bowers K. Crime displacement: what we know, what we don’t know, and what it means for crime reduction. J Exp Criminol. 2014;10:549–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Moyer R, MacDonald JM, Ridgeway G, Branas CC. Effect of remediating blighted vacant land on shootings: a citywide cluster randomized trial. Am J Public Health. 2019;109:140–4.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  25. Jay J, Miratrix LW, Branas CC, Zimmerman MA, Hemenway D. Urban building demolitions, firearm violence and drug crime. J Behavioral Medicine. 2019;42:626–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. •• David R Beam, Aniko Szabo, Jared Olson, Lawrence Hoffman, Kirsten M M Beyer. Vacant lot to community garden conversion and crime in Milwaukee: a difference-in-differences analysis. Inj Prev 2021;27:403–408 The first quasi-experimental study (n = 212 lots) to investigate a community-driven approach to vacant lot greening in a large city over an extended period of time. Results demonstrated lower violent and nuisance crime rates near treatment lots. However, no substantial effects were observed among theft crimes.

  27. • Charles C Branas, Michelle C Kondo, Sean M Murphy, Eugenia C South, Daniel Polsky, John M MacDonald. Urban blight remediation as a cost-beneficial solution to firearm violence. Am J Public Health 2016;106:2158–2164 The first study to report cost-benefit and percentage reduction estimates for place-based interventions and firearm violence.

  28. •• Charles C Branas, Eugenia South, Michelle C Kondo, Bernadette C Hohl, Philippe Bourgois, Douglas J Wiebe, John M MacDonald. Citywide cluster randomized trial to restore blighted vacant land and its effects on violence, crime, and fear. PNAS 2018;115:2946–2951 Citywide cluster randomized controlled trial (n = 541 lots) investigating the effect of greening on violence and perceptions of fear and safety. Results indicated that greening significantly reduced firearm violence and other police-reported problems. Participants living near treated vacant lots reported significantly reduced perceptions of crime.

  29. Frazier AE, Bagchi-Sen S, Knight J. The spatio-temporal impacts of demolition land use policy and crime in a shrinking city. Appl Geogr. 2013;41:55–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Garvin EC, Cannuscio CC, Branas CC. Greening vacant lots to reduce violent crime: a randomised controlled trial. Inj Prev. 2013;19:198–203.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  31. • Justin E Heinze, Allison Krusky-Morey, Kevin J Vagi, Thomas M Reischl, Susan Franzen, Natalie K Pruett, Rebecca M Cunningham, Marc A Zimmerman. Busy streets theory: the effects of community-engaged greening on violence. Am J Community Psychol 2018;62:101–109 A quasi-experimental study that shows that community-engaged greening of vacant lots is associated with a nearly 40% reduction in assaults and total violent crime compared to vacant lots not maintained by these groups.

  32. •• Sandhya Kajeepeta, Katherina P Theall, Michelle C Kondo, Charles C Branas, Maeve E Wallace, Sara F Jacoby, Christopher N Morrison. The association between blighted property remediation and domestic crime by alcohol availability. Health Place 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2020.102364The first quasi-experimental study to test for neighborhood-level modifiers of land-based intervention effectiveness. In triple-difference analyses, on-premise bar density modified the association between greening and domestic crime incidence.

  33. • Michelle C Kondo, Danya Keene, Bernadette C Hohl, John M MacDonald, Charles C Branas. A difference-in-differences study of the effects of a new abandoned building remediation strategy on safety. PLoS One 2015;10:e0129582 The first study demonstrating the effects of abandoned building remediation on changes surrounding crime. Results indicated building remediations were significantly associated with citywide reductions in overall crimes, total assaults, gun assaults, and nuisance crimes.

  34. Kondo M, Hohl B, Han SeungHoon, Branas C. Effects of greening and community reuse of vacant lots on crime. Urabn Stud. 2016;53:3279–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Kondo MC, Morrison C, Jacoby SF, Elliott L, Poche A, Theall KP, Branas CC. Blight abatement of vacant land and crime in New Orleans. Public Health Rep. 2018;133:650–7.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  36. Kondo MC, Clougherty JE, Hohl BC, Branas CC. Gender differences in impacts of place-based neighborhood greening interventions on fear of violence based on a cluster-randomized controlled trial. J Urban Health. 2021;98:812–21.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  37. South EC, MacDonald J, Reina V. Association between structural housing repairs for low-income homeowners and neighborhood crime. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4: e2117067.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  38. Spader J, Schuetz J, Cortes A. Fewer vacants, fewer crimes? Impacts of neighborhood revitalization policies on crime. Reg Sci Urban Econ. 2016;60:73–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Stacy CP. The effect of vacant building demolitions on crime under depopulation. J Regional Science. 2018;58:100–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Wheeler AP, Kim D-Y, Phillips SW. The effect of housing demolitions on crime in Buffalo, New York. J Res Crime Delinq. 2018;55:390–424.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Mair JS, Mair M. Violence prevention and control through environmental modifications. Annu Rev Public Health. 2003;24:209–25.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  42. White H, Sabarwal S. Quasi-experimental design and methods, methodological briefs: Impact evaluation 8. Florence: UNICEF Office of Research; 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Ho DE, Imai K, King G, Stuart EA. Matching as nonparametric preprocessing for reducing model dependence in parametric causal inference. Polit Anal. 2007;15:199–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Meyer MN, Heck PR, Holtzman GS, Chabris CF. Objecting to experiments that com- pare two unobjectionable policies or treatments. PNAS. 2019;166:10723–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Hayes RJ, Moulton LH. Cluster randomised trials. New York, NY: Chapman and Hall/CRC; 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Torgerson DJ. Contamination in trials: Is cluster randomisation the answer? BMJ. 2001;322(7282):355–7.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  47. Donner A, Klar N. Pitfalls of and controversies in cluster randomization trials. Am J Public Health. 2004;94:416–22.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  48. Dron L, Taljaard M, Cheung YB, Grais R, Ford N, Thorlund K. The role and challenges of cluster randomised trials for global health. The Lancet. 2021;9:E701–10.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  49. Clarke R. “Situational” crime prevention: theory and practice. Br J Criminol. 1980;20:136–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Branas CC. The culture of experimentation in epidemiology - 50 years later. Int J Epidemiol in press  2022:

  51. Guerrero R, Concha-Eastman A. An epidemiological approach for the prevention of urban violence: The case of cali, Colombia. World Health & Population; 1999.

  52. Aliprantis D, Hartley D. Blowing it up and knocking it down: the local and city-wide effects of demolishing high concentration public housing on crime. J Urban Econ. 2015;88:67–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Kuo FE, Sullivan WC. Aggression and violence in the inner city: effects of environment via mental fatigue. Environ Behav. 2001;33:543–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Kondo M, Degli Esposti M, Jay J, Morison CN, Freisthler B, Jones C, Yang J, Branas C, Hohl B. Changes in crime surrounding an urban home renovation and rebuild programme. Urban Studies. 2022;59(5):1011–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This work was supported, in part, by the following grants: NIH/NIEHS T32ES007322, NIH/NIAAA R01AA024941, NIH/NICHD R01HD095609, and CDC/NCIPC R49CE003094. The content of this manuscript is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH or the CDC.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 722 W 168th St, Rm 516, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Ariana N. Gobaud, Ahuva L. Jacobowitz, Christina A. Mehranbod, Nadav L. Sprague, Charles C. Branas & Christopher N. Morrison

  2. Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Christopher N. Morrison

Authors
  1. Ariana N. Gobaud
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ahuva L. Jacobowitz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Christina A. Mehranbod
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Nadav L. Sprague
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Charles C. Branas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Christopher N. Morrison
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ariana N. Gobaud.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

All authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Injury Epidemiology

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Gobaud, A.N., Jacobowitz, A.L., Mehranbod, C.A. et al. Place-Based Interventions and the Epidemiology of Violence Prevention. Curr Epidemiol Rep 9, 316–325 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40471-022-00301-z

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40471-022-00301-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation