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Association Between Acute Exposure to Crime and Individual Systolic Blood Pressure
W Wyatt Wilson1, Rhys F M Chua2, Peng Wei2
1Department of Medicine, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine
|September 20, 2021
Summary
Exposure to violent crime is linked to higher blood pressure, especially closer to home and soon after the event. This highlights the impact of neighborhood safety on cardiovascular health.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Environmental Health
- Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology
Background:
- Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
- Hypertension disproportionately affects underserved urban populations.
- Geographic concentration of hypertension in urban areas suggests environmental influences.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the temporal-spatial association between exposure to violent crime and blood pressure.
- To quantify the impact of proximity and recency of violent crime on individual blood pressure.
Main Methods:
- Retrospective observational cohort study of 39,211 patients with 227,595 blood pressure measurements (2014-2016).
- Individual exposure to violent crime defined using spatial (100-1000m radii) and temporal (7-60 days) buffers.
- Systolic blood pressure (SBP) abstracted from electronic health records; geocoded crime data from Chicago Police Department.
Main Results:
- Each violent crime event within 100m of home correlated with a 0.14 mmHg SBP increase within 7 days and 0.08 mmHg within 30 days.
- SBP increased by 0.37 mmHg in affluent vs. extreme poverty neighborhood clusters for similar crime exposure.
- A dose-response relationship observed between proximity/recency of crime exposure and SBP elevation.
Conclusions:
- Exposure to violent crime is significantly associated with increased blood pressure.
- Both spatial distance and temporal proximity to violent crime events influence blood pressure elevation.
- Neighborhood socioeconomic status modifies the association between violent crime exposure and blood pressure.
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