Person or Place? A Contextual, Event-History Analysis of Homicide Victimization Risk

This grant is funded under the FY2013 Research on Violent Victimization Program solicitation, which sought applications for investigator initiated research on violent victimization topics including but not limited to the intersections of race, ethnicity and victimization; the victim offender overlap as it pertains to violent victimization; the effectiveness of services for victims of violent crime; and sexual orientation and/or gender identity and violent victimization.
Researchers have studied the causes of homicide for nearly 100 years and the vast majority of this research focuses on how social context influences homicide rates. Another tradition of research focuses on individual characteristics and the likelihood of being a homicide victim. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of community disadvantage on the risk of homicide victimization and focuses on how the community effects change once characteristics of the individual are considered. This research integrates concepts from social disorganization theory with concepts from lifestyle theory by examining the effects of both community predictors of disadvantage and individual attributes which may compel a person in certain ways. The research will use data from the National Health Interview Survey (1996-2006) (NHIS) linked with the National Death Index data which provides individual-level data on homicide mortality including achieved characteristics (e.g. education, employment status, marital status, etc.) and ascribed characteristics (e.g. race, age, sex, immigrant status, etc.). The 2000 Census and 2005-2009 American Community Survey will be integrated using geographic identifiers from the NHIS to create community-level characteristics of disadvantage including measures of resource deprivation, "urbanness" and housing instability. Event history analysis and survey logistic regression analysis will be used to investigate the impact of community-level disadvantage and individual-level characteristics of homicide mortality in block groups in the U.S. and to examine how individual-level characteristics influence the relationship between context and risk of homicide victimization. This research will advance the research on homicide victimization risk and provide insight into the reduction of risk of homicide victimization. ca/ncf