Abstract
Most research on communities and crime measures constructs at only one level of aggregation, but this tendency for a singular unit of analysis makes this research susceptible to omitted level bias. This study exposes this issue and provides an empirical demonstration of the problem using disadvantage as a focal construct by measuring the construct at three different units of analysis. Multilevel analyses use crime-incident data and demographic data from the American Community Survey for 11,072 block groups nested within 3673 tracts in 34 cities for 2005–2009. Results reveal that the association between disadvantage and crime differs by level of aggregation and when more than one measure of disadvantage is accounted for analytically. Furthermore, the association between disadvantage and crime at one level is dependent on the amount of disadvantage at other levels. These findings suggest that omitted level bias is a significant issue of concern for multilevel research.
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