Since 2002, the Institute for Peace Promotion and Injury/Violence Prevention (CISALVA) at the Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia and the Colombia Program at Georgetown University have developed and implemented 21 epidemiologically based municipal crime observatories in intermediate-sized municipalities in Colombia. These crime observatories serve as monitoring centres that provide low cost, geo-referenced methods of data collection and analysis, which allow cities to develop more responsive policies and prevention programmes and enhance governance. This article focuses on the methodology employed and lessons learned that may be applicable to similar settings. Worth noting within the results was a significant decrease in homicides after the first year of the programme. Whether or not such results could be attributed to the method or to the nature of the interventions and policy initiatives stemming from it remains open to conjecture.
Background In a city with high rates of violence such as Cali is important to use tools to monitor this phenomenon to identify the sites of major crime and thereby prevent and mitigate the problem. Objectives To estimate the homicide risk in Cali through geostatistical models involving spatial correlation structure as also identifying relationships between variables that explain the homicidies in the city. Methods The methodology has two components: the first one corresponds to the spatial analysis which observes if there is a possible correlation of homicides (also addressing statistical methods of concentration) and distribution as it works in geostatistics. The second is to characterise the homicides through a multiple factor analysis, working with tables of three indexes: individuals, variables, and the moments when these variables are measured. Results Using this methodology, the results indicate that the highest homicide risk is concentrated in the neighbourhoods of central and eastern sectors of the city, as well as evidencing the communes of the centre have the highest number of murder cases which are highly related with firearm deaths, knifes, unemployees and male gender. Also was observed anisotropic behaviour of semivariogram, directed by an angle of 90 degrees, which corresponds to the eastern neighbourhoods of the city. Contribution to the Field Through this methodology, we can obtain useful tools and strategies to help the stake holders in differentiated by zones, and build public policy actions to mitigate the problem and prevent homicide deaths.
consistently recorded. The total number of adult and pediatric traumas, road traffic accidents (RTAs) and injuries due to violence were tabulated from each logbook. A time-limited observational trauma registry was created and all trauma patients presenting to three tertiary referral centers during one 8 e 12 hour period were recorded. Findings: Logbooks were obtained from ten healthcare facilities with a median of 100 beds (range 40-300) All logbooks recorded patient name, age, date and hometown. A high degree of variability was observed in the amount of detail recorded for mechanism of injury, presenting symptoms, diagnosis, ER course and disposition. There was a median of 39 (range 20-114) trauma cases in one week. Pediatric trauma represented 4.4 e 42.4% of cases. Of the 8 facilities reporting mechanism, RTAs and violence represented a median of 22.6% (10.0 e 31.6%) and 9.4% (5.0 e 33.3%) of cases, respectively. Thirty-nine trauma patients were recorded in the abbreviated trauma registry. Modes of transportation to the ER included motorcycle (51.3%), car (17.9%), and foot (12.8%) with a median time from injury to presentation of 60 minutes (range 15-1170).
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