Neighborhood crime, disorder and substance use in the Caribbean context: Jamaica National Drug Use Prevalence Survey 2016

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the role of objective and subjective measures of neighborhood crime and disorder on substance use among a nationally representative sample of 4525 Jamaicans aged 12–65 years. Log-Poisson models with generalized estimating equations were used to estimate relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). A test of interaction was used to determine presence of effect modification by sex. Approximately 39% of the study population reported past-month alcohol use; 10% past-month tobacco use; and 15% past-month marijuana use. In fully adjusted models, past-month alcohol and tobacco use were associated with perceived neighborhood disorder (p<0.05). The likelihood of alcohol use was 1.12 (95%CI:1.04, 1.20) times greater among participants who perceived higher neighborhood disorder. The likelihood of tobacco use was 1.22 (95%CI: 1.01, 1.46) times greater among participants who perceived higher neighborhood disorder. A significant test for interaction in adjusted models (P<0.2) suggested that the associations between substance use and perceived neighborhood disorder varied by sex. Examination of stratified models indicated that the role of perceived neighborhood disorder on alcohol and tobacco consumption varied among females, but not males. Females who perceived higher levels of neighborhood disorder had an increased likelihood of past-month alcohol and tobacco use (RRa:1.25 95%CI:1,07, 1.45; RRa:1.73 95%CI: 1.10, 2.67). Objective neighborhood crime measures were not associated with alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana use. The study findings provide evidence for the importance of considering subjective and objective neighborhood measures when examining relations with health outcome and demonstrate that perceptions of context and contextual exposures are not uniform across populations within neighborhoods. Interventions focused on building community trust and social cohesion (e.g. neighborhood community watch groups) and greening of blighted or abandoned spaces may help increase the sense of safety and order, reducing stress and maladaptive coping such as substance use.

Associations of neighborhood physical and crime environments with obesity-related outcomes in Jamaica

“…MAUP arises from aggregating point-based measures of spatial phenomena to arbitrarily defined geographic areas and the use of administrative boundaries as a proxy for neighborhood. Although EDs are the smallest unit of aggregation in Jamaica to facilitate the collection of census and survey data, they provide only a rough measure of neighborhood context [ 65 ].…”

Neighbourhood socioeconomic characteristics and blood pressure among Jamaican youth: a pooled analysis of data from observational studies

“…Two other studies were identified, one reporting an association between neighbourhood crime and childhood malnutrition (Thompson et al, 2017) and the other reporting associations between perceived neighbourhood characteristics and depressive symptoms among adolescents in Jamaica and other Caribbean islands (Lowe et al, 2014). More recently, associations have been reported between neighbourhood disorder and cumulative biological risk and substance use (Cunningham-Myrie et al, 2018;Felker-Kantor et al, 2019).…”

What Regional Living Conditions Affect Individual Smoking of Adults in Russia

“…Studies covering districts, boroughs, and municipalities often show no associations between smoking and socio-economic characteristics, for example, the crime rate ( 20 ), the unemployment rate ( 22 ), the average per capita income ( 22 , 23 ), or the Gini index ( 23 ). Furthermore, a number of studies, surprisingly, show positive associations between socio-economic characteristics and smoking, which means that an improvement of the socio-economic situation caused an increase in the degree of smoking incidence ( 14 , 26 ).…”

“…It is significant that the impact of territorial living conditions on individual health indicators can vary considerably depending on the scale of the selected territory (16)(17)(18)(19). Most of the "smoking geography" studies focus on small territorial entities: Postal index zones, city districts, municipalities, and areas with a population of under 50,000-100,000 people (14,15,(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27). There are considerably fewer works devoted to the research of territorial smoking predictors at the international level (28)(29)(30).…”

“…Such surveys of “smoking geography” essentially focus on studying one or several social or economic characteristics selected as territorial predictors: The Gini index ( 23 , 28 , 31 , 33 ), crime rate ( 20 ), Gross Domestic Product ( 28 , 30 ), education level ( 21 ), per capita income ( 22 , 23 ), unemployment rate ( 22 ), and poverty headcount ( 34 ). However, in reality, there are numerous complex relationships between territorial characteristics ( 17 , 35 ).…”