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Creating a Healthy and Safe City: The Impact of Violence in New Haven

Creating a Healthy and Safe City: The Impact of Violence in New Haven
Type Report Format PDF Author New Haven Health Department Year 2010 Related Sectors Public Safety Organization New Haven Health Department

Overview

The New Haven Health Department launched a Health Equity Alliance (HEA) in 2009 to focus on the underlying causes of health disparities in our city. Drawing upon a growing number of health equity efforts in other cities and regions, the goal of HEA is to ensure that all community members have equal opportunity to experience optimal health.

We believe that health begins in our homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, and schools. Health is a product of our broader environmental circumstances as much as it is a result of individual behaviors, actions, or having access to good doctors and affordable health care. Neighborhood conditions play a large part in determining health status and must be a target of city-wide efforts to improve overall community health. To align with the priorities of the New Haven Board of Health and other community leaders, the HEA has begun by emphasizing the issues of neighborhood safety, obesity and tobacco use.

This first “issue brief” focuses on the subject of violence within our communities, and was developed by the Health Data Workgroup of the HEA for presentation to the New Haven Health Matters! Planning Group. Consisting of community leaders from a variety of sectors, the Health Matters! Planning Group was created by Mayor DeStefano in 2010 to inform and guide policy changes related to health in New Haven. Within this document, we describe trends in community violence as well as the community and societal level factors that increase the risk of or protect against injury from violence. We also identify possible remedies. The data comes from multiple sources including the Health Equity Index (HEI), an innovative tool developed by the Connecticut Association of Directors of Health for local communities to use to examine the connection between social and economic conditions in neighborhoods and the health status of local residents. The HEI uses a 10 point scale (1 is poor and 10 is excellent) to measure health outcomes and the social and environmental factors that influence them, such as educational attainment, environmental quality, economic opportunity, and public safety.

Table of Contents

• Preface 1
• Executive Summary 2
• Background and Scope of Report 4
• A Public Health Approach to Addressing Violence 5
• New Haven Crime Statistics 6
• The Health Effects of Violence: Physical Injury 9
• The Health Effects of Violence: Beyond Physical Injury 12
• Risk and Protective Factors for Being Involved in Violence 15
• Conclusions and Next Steps 20
• Appendices and References

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