A Small Area Estimation Method for Investigating the Relationship between Public Perception of Drug Problems with Neighborhood Prognostics: Trends in London between 2012 and 2019.

Arun Sondhi,Emily Gilbert,Alessandro Leidi

doi:10.3390/ijerph18179016

Abstract

The correlation of the public’s perception of drug problems with neighborhood characteristics has rarely been studied. The aim of this study was to investigate factors that correlate with public perceptions in London boroughs using the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) Public Attitude Survey between 2012 and 2019. A subject-specific random effect deploying a Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) using an Adaptive Gaussian Quadrature method with 10 integration points was applied. To obtain time trends across inner and outer London areas, the GLMM was fitted using a Restricted Marginal Pseudo Likelihood method. The perception of drug problems increased with statistical significance in 17 out of 32 London boroughs between 2012 and 2019. These boroughs were geographically clustered across the north of London. Levels of deprivation, as measured by the English Index of Multiple Deprivation, as well as the percentage of local population who were non-UK-born and recorded vehicle crime rates were shown to be positively associated with the public’s perception of drug problems. Conversely, recorded burglary rate was negatively associated with the public’s perception of drug problems in their area. The public are influenced in their perception of drug problems by neighborhood factors including deprivation and visible manifestations of antisocial behavior.

Highlights

Measuring how the general public perceives the extent and nature of criminal and anti-social behavior has been used to inform policymakers on whether crime is seen to be increasing [1] and on attitudes towards the police [2,3]
The use of illicit substances has been placed within an antisocial behavioral framework such that drug use has been shown to be strongly associated with knife crime [9]; assault, [10] including sexual assault [11] and domestic abuse [12]; other forms of violence, including gang-related behaviors [13]; and acquisitive crimes, encompassing burglary and theft [10,14,15]
The proportion of survey respondents who felt drugs were a problem was modeled by a Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) in an aggregated format, and the mixed binomial model converged successfully

Summary

Introduction

Measuring how the general public perceives the extent and nature of criminal and anti-social behavior has been used to inform policymakers on whether crime is seen to be increasing [1] and on attitudes towards the police [2,3]. Public perspectives towards antisocial and criminal behavior have been viewed as a possible prognostic to poor physical [4] and mental health [5,6,7,8]. Neighborhood characteristics have been identified that attempt to explain differential rates of crime through the extent of social disorganization within an area [16] and how community disorder such as vandalism and open drug use can be perceived as physical manifestations that provide ‘signals’ of localized antisocial behavior [17,18,19].

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Discussion

Conclusion