Municipal-level Data Research Articles

Finnish Municipalities 1880 to 1974: Creating Harmonized Statistical Units Over a Century

A rich universe of municipality-level or municipality-aggregated data is available for Finland, going back more than 150 years. The unit of analysis -- the municipality -- however, has been unstable across this period, thus making consistent data analysis difficult and time-consuming. I propose a transparent data-harmonization procedure, and provide the underlying data, crosswalks, and automated scripts to perform harmonization for the 1880 to 1974 time period.

Excess Mortality during the First and Second Waves of COVID-19 Spread in Japan (December 2019-May 2020); Evidence from Municipality Level Data

The current consensus is that the new coronavirus SARS-Cov-2 was imported in Japan from Wuhan in January 2020, and that the spread resulted in a first COVID-19

A nation-wide cross-sectional study of variations in homecare nurses\u2019 assessments of informational continuity \u2013 the importance of horizontal collaboration and municipal context

BackgroundNumerous studies have revealed challenges associated with ensuring informational continuity in municipal care services for older adults with comprehensive, prolonged and complex care needs. Most research is qualitative and on the micro-level. The aim of the current study is to map variation in homecare nurses’ assessments of available information in the municipalities’ documentation system and investigate the extent to which these assessments are associated with perceived quality of collaborations and with municipal context.MethodsWe used data from a nationwide web-based survey among 1612 nurses working with older adults (65+) in homecare services in Norway. Responses from individual homecare nurses were linked with municipal-level data from the public registers. Data were analysed with descriptive statistics and multilevel regression analyses.ResultsInformation on the recipients’ medications and medical condition was considered most often available (42.8 and 20.0% responding very often/always), whereas information related to psychosocial needs and future follow-up was perceived less available (4.5 and 6.7% responding very often/always). Homecare nurses’ perceptions of the quality of collaboration with the GP and the allotment office were independently and positively associated with assessments of informational continuity (ß =0.86 and ß =0.96). A modest share of the total variation (8%) in assessments of informational continuity was at the structural level of municipality. Small municipalities (< 5000 inhabitants) had, on average, better informational continuity compared to larger municipalities (ß = -0.47).ConclusionsDocumentation systems have a limited focus on long-term care needs of older care recipients beyond clinical and medical information. There is a potential for enhanced communication- and care-pathways between GPs, the allotment office and nurses in homecare services. This can support the coordinating role of homecare nurses in ensuring informational continuity for older adults with prolonged and complex care needs and help develop the facilitating role of (electronic) documentation systems.

Trends in Untreated Tuberculosis in Large Brazilian Cities

Introduction: As in many countries, tuberculosis (TB) programs in Brazil are managed at the state and local level, where the success of disease control may differ substantially from national-level averages. Methods: We used municipality-level data on case notifications, TB-related mortality, GDP per capita, and primary healthcare coverage for Brazil’s top 100 municipalities by population as well as all state capitals for 2008-2017. We constructed a mathematical model describing the relationship between these data and unobserved TB incidence and case detection probabilities. We used Bayesian methods to synthesize data and estimate TB incidence, fraction of cases treated, and the untreated TB rate ( product of incidence and one minus the fraction of cases treated ) for each year and municipality. Results: In 2017, these municipalities had an average incidence of 58.6 per 100,000 (range: 11.6, 169), with an average 5.3 untreated cases per 100,000 (range: 0.7, 23.0), a nd an average fraction treated of 0.91 (range: 0.78, 0.97). Over 2008-2017, the incidence rate and the untreated TB rates decreased at an average annual rate of 0.95% (range: -5.41% – 4.73%) and 2.88% (range: -17.4% – 7.98%) respectively; the fraction of cases initiating treatment increased at an average annual rate of 0.3% (range: -0.97% – 3.54%). The incidence rate increased in 33 municipalities and the fraction of treated cases decreased in 36 municipalities over the study period. Interpretation: The results describe substantial variation in disease burden and the strength of case detection in Brazilian municipalities. These methods can provide municipalities with information to guide local public health decision-making. Funding Statement: Dr. Menzies reports grants from Lemann Brazil Research Fund and NIH (1R01AI146555-01A1) during the conduct of the study; Ms. Chitwood reports grants from Michael von Clemm Traveling Fellowship Fund during the conduct of the study. Declaration of Interests: All authors have nothing to disclose. Ethics Approval Statement: The Office of Human Research Administration at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health reviewed the Initial Study Submission (Protocol #: IRB18-0759) and determined that it met the criteria for exemption from the ethics board (IRB) review.

The reintegration of ex-combatants and post-conflict violence. An analysis of municipal crime levels in Colombia

Violent crime in Colombia is analyzed following the demobilization of ex-combatants using municipal-level data. The main findings are that an increased presence of ex-combatants does not systematically increase homicides, but may increase robberies. Reintegration programs are shown to matter. Former paramilitaries who are not in a reintegration program increase crime. Former guerillas increase robberies, regardless of whether they are in or out of reintegration, but homicides decrease for guerrillas in reintegration. Ex-combatants often settle in municipalities with more crime. Controlling for reverse causality, ex-combatants only increase crime if they are not in reintegration, while in reintegration they may reduce crime.

A comprehensive approach to understanding flood risk drivers at the municipal level

During the period 1998–2017, floods were responsible for 11% of the loss of life and 23% of the economic loss caused by climate-related and geophysical-related disasters worldwide. An integrated and effective definition of flood risk management strategies therefore still requires synthesized and comprehensive knowledge about the driving forces of flood risk.In this study, 278 Portuguese municipalities are analyzed and classified according to flood hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. After evaluating the three components that describe risk, an index of the flood risk is calculated and a cluster analysis is further performed to understand the role of the risk drivers (hazard, exposure, and vulnerability) in each municipality. The proposed approach therefore provides flood risk indexes on a municipal basis, which are built upon different sources of both cell-by-cell data and an aggregation of municipal-level data that has been statistically validated. Municipalities both in the NW part of the country and along the valleys of major rivers demonstrate a significant superimposition of high levels of exposure and hazard, while vulnerability presents a disperse pattern throughout the country.The results obtained using this approach should contribute to the diversification of flood risk management strategies. This is still lacking in the majority of the national-level flood risk governance processes, namely those strategies that focus on the contingency of daily activities and those aiming at a long-term reduction of the exposure, vulnerability, and hazard components that shape flood disasters.

Betrayed by the Elites: How Corruption Amplifies the Political Effects of Recessions

We investigate whether corruption amplifies the political effects of economic crises. Using Spanish municipal-level data and a difference-in-difference strategy, we find that local unemployment shocks experienced during the Great Recession (2008-2015) increased political fragmentation. This effect was four times larger in municipalities exposed to malfeasance than in municipalities without a history of political corruption. We bolster this evidence by showing that, conditional on province and population-strata fixed effects, there is no evidence of differential pre-trends. We also find that the interaction of unemployment and corruption harms the two traditional main parties and benefits especially the new party on the left (Podemos).

Mental Health Problems Among Adolescents in Sweden from 1995 to 2011: The Role of Immigrant Status and the Proportions of Immigrant Adolescents in Their Surrounding Community

We compared the mental health of native and immigrant adolescents in Sweden from 1995 to 2011 and examined whether the municipality-level proportion of immigrant adolescents moderated the association between individual-level immigrant status and mental health. The sample (14,189 adolescents aged 15–16) was obtained from a repeated cross-sectional study conducted from 1995 to 2011. Adolescent self-report data (gender, immigrant status, economic situation, and mental health) and municipality-level data (proportion of immigrant adolescents) were used in multilevel linear regression analyses. Immigrant adolescents reported more mental health problems than their native Swedish peers. The long-term trend in mental health problems did not differ between the two groups. The association between individual immigrant status and mental health did not differ according to the municipality-level rate of immigrant adolescents. These findings highlight the need for public health attention to and efforts to address immigrant adolescents’ mental health problems in Sweden.

Immigration Demand and the Boomerang of Deportation Policies

What causes the demand for migration into the United States? We argue for, and demonstrate the existence of, a vicious cycle of US immigration policy and migration between the United States and countries from Latin America and the Caribbean. Our argument is simple: deportation of convicts from the United States leads to violence in the deportees’ home country which, in turn, increases the demand for that country’s natives to seek entry into the United States. We test this argument utilizing a nested research design based on cross-country panel data for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as subnational administrative and individual survey data from the case of El Salvador. At the cross-country level, we first estimate the effect of deportations on home country violence and find a strong positive effect of the lagged inflow of convicts on violence, but not for the inflow of non-convicts. In the second step, we show that the predicted level of home country violence helps explain the demand for entry into the United States. Municipal level and survey data from El Salvador complement the cross-country study and illustrate the export of gangs from the United States as one specific mechanism of how the deportation boomerang works. In the first step regression, we predict the contagion of gangs along migration corridors following large-scale deportations to El Salvador. In the second step regression, we use survey data to explain migration intentions as well as high rates of actual migration as a result of gang-related violence in El Salvador.

Addressing inequalities in medical workforce distribution: evidence from a quasi-experimental study in Brazil

BackgroundBrazil faces huge health inequality challenges since not all municipalities have access to primary care physicians. The More Doctors Programme (MDP), which started in 2013, was born out of this...

Avoidable hospitalization in Milan’s metropolitan area: inequalities and comparison with OECD cities

Abstract Background The largest cities on the world face the unprecedented challenge of meeting the needs of a population that lives longer, has declining birthrates, and is altering the demographic profile on which social welfare programs have long been premised. This work is part of an international project aimed at comparing health and social care systems in megacities worldwide. We study access to healthcare in the metropolitan area of Milan to quantify avoidable hospital care and social inequalities within this world city, and compare Milan with other OECD megacities. Methods Two sources of data are combined: individual-level hospital discharge data to measure hospitalization for ambulatory-care sensitive conditions (ACSC), and municipality-level data collected from the national office for statistics. First, we performed an ecological analysis using a linear model for ACSC hospitalization rates to detect the risk factors in the municipality where the patient resides. Then, to identify both individual and area-level variations in population health, we use multilevel logistic regression model. Results Age-adjusted ACSC hospitalization rates continuously declined from 2005 to 2016, from 16% to 10.7%. Municipality-level risk factors include proportion of residents aged 65+ and proportion of foreigner residents. The individual-level predictors of ACSC hospitalization include being male, being single, having co-morbidities and low education. This association is only modestly attenuated when patient’s area-level characteristics are accounted. Conclusions We observed declining trends in ACSC hospitalizations and identified some patient’s as well as area-level characteristics related to avoidable hospitalization. Understanding whether ACSC hospitalization has dropped due to improvements in population health and access to healthcare or as part of the overall reduction in hospitalization rates needs to be further explored. Key messages Effective primary care can reduce hospitalization for preventable and chronic conditions. This work identifies individual and ecological factors related to avoidable hospitalization in urban settings. Policies to improve access to healthcare, tackle inequalities and reduce hospitalization costs may be more effective if targeted on individuals considering and the environment in which they live.

Inferring the dynamics of rising radical right-wing party support using Gaussian processes.

The use of classical regression techniques in social science can prevent the discovery of complex, nonlinear mechanisms and often relies too heavily on both the expertise and prior expectations of the data analyst. In this paper, we present a regression methodology that combines the interpretability of traditional, well used, statistical methods with the full predictability and flexibility of Bayesian statistics techniques. Our modelling approach allows us to find and explain the mechanisms behind the rise of Radical Right-wing Populist parties (RRPs) that we would have been unable to find using traditional methods. Using Swedish municipality-level data (2002-2018), we find no evidence that the proportion of foreign-born residents is predictive of increases in RRP support. Instead, education levels and population density are the significant variables that impact the change in support for the RRP, in addition to spatial and temporal control variables. We argue that our methodology, which produces models with considerably better fit of the complexity and nonlinearities often found in social systems, provides a better tool for hypothesis testing and exploration of theories about RRPs and other social movements. This article is part of the theme issue 'Coupling functions: dynamical interaction mechanisms in the physical, biological and social sciences'.

Maize yield in Mexico under climate change

Understanding the effects of climate change on maize yield in Mexico is important from both a national and international perspective. Maize is Mexico's staple food crop, thus, decrements in national production would strongly compromise food security in the country.Internationally, maize is the most important grain crop in terms of human consumption and the conservation in situ of its germplasm should be a global priority. Mexico harbors half of the known genetic diversity for this crop in the American continent, which is instrumental for future genetic improvement efforts that could generate new, environmentally resilient varieties. In this study, we analyze the link between maize yield and several climate variables in rainfed and irrigated crop areas in Mexico to project yield variations under future climate change scenarios. We used municipality-level data for seven states that account for ∼65% of the annual maize production in Mexico and cover an important amount of national climatic variability. We used public data published by the Mexican government on yield and climate from 2003 to 2015 and built linear models to assess the impact of climate on maize yield. We considered the municipality to be a random effect and accounted for potential autocorrelation in the 13-year time series. We also evaluated how many municipalities reached their states' breakeven point in order to project the geographic areas that will earn higher profits due to increased yields. Our results showed that the municipality had a significant effect on yield, and consequently, our results could not be extrapolated to other geographic areas in the country. We found temperature to be the most influential factor on yield under rainfed conditions, while precipitation was the most influential factor for irrigated crops. Like earlier studies at a global scale, we found higher yield stability for irrigated fields than for rainfed fields when considering different climate change scenarios. Our projections indicate that yields from rainfed fields will be reduced significantly under future scenarios. We argue that average yield data in rainfed fields does not include data on the diversity of native maize varieties or their potentially different responses to changes in the environment. Finally, under current conditions, there are by far more municipalities reaching their breakeven point in rainfed fields than in irrigated fields, suggesting that higher yields do not necessarily translate into greater profits for farmers because costs can also increase depending on the type of agriculture practiced.

Violence, voting & peace: Explaining public support for the peace referendum in Colombia

How does political violence affect popular support for peace? We answer this question by examining Colombia, where in 2016 the people narrowly and unexpectedly voted against a peace agreement designed to end a half century of civil war. Building on research on the impact of political violence on elections as well as research on referendum/initiative voting in the United States, we argue that local experiences with violence and the political context will lead to heightened support for peace. We test these expectations using spatial modeling and a municipal-level data on voting in the 2016 Colombian peace referendum, and find that municipal-level support for the referendum increases with greater exposure to violence and increasing support for President Santos. These results are spatially distributed, so that exposure to violence in one municipality is associated with greater support for the peace referendum in that municipality and also in surrounding areas. Our findings have implications not only for Colombia, but for all post-war votes and other contexts in which referenda and elections have major and/or unexpected results.

Fiscal decentralization and equalization transfers in Georgia: evidence from municipality-level data

ABSTRACTGovernments worldwide face the difficult task of how to decentralise fiscal means across regions and cities and it is even more challenging when governments are under pressure, such as some post-communist economies in eastern Europe and Asia. A case in point is Georgia, a diverse Caucasian country with internal pressures from regions with independence tendencies and external pressures from Russia. How Georgia’s government decentralises is what we provide new evidence for in this paper using two data sets. First, we use internationally comparable data to evaluate how decentralised the Georgian public finances are. We find that Georgia is in fact one of the least decentralised transition countries and has become less decentralised recently. Second, we use detailed municipality-level data for Georgia to determine the effects of equalisation transfers focused on fiscal decentralisation. We discuss the unequal nature of these transfers and we evaluate three reform proposals for changing them.

A conditional cash transfer and Women's empowerment: Does Bolsa Familia Influence intimate partner violence?

We apply mixed methods to explore how a conditional cash transfer (CCT) may influence intimate partner violence (IPV). Qualitative interviews with female beneficiaries of Bolsa Familia, Brazil's CCT program, and service providers suggest positive, negative, and null associations between CCTs and IPV are all plausible. These associations result from a combination of economic and psychological motivations. We also use quantitative methods to examine if the expansion of Bolsa Familia between 2004 and 2009 affects the female homicide rate and marital separations. Using municipal level data in a difference-in-differences analysis, we find null associations between Bolsa Familia and female homicides. When we examine the impact on marriages and separations, indicative of a change in the reservation utility of women within the household, we find no impact on marriages but Bolsa Familia is associated with an increase in separations, and, to a greater extent, separations of couples with children. These results suggest Bolsa Familia impacts women's agency within the family, but not to the extent that it reduces the most extreme form of IPV.

The effect of temporary parental benefit on children’s antibiotics use: Evidence from a natural field experiment

Prudent use of antibiotics is important to delay the spread of resistance. This paper analyses the effect on children’s antibiotics use of a reform of the temporary parental benefit in Sweden. The reform increased the maximum compensation for this benefit. The level of compensation for social security may affect the propensity of a patient or parent to push for a prescription for antibiotics, as a less generous compensation makes it more expensive to be absent from work and since there is widespread overconfidence in the effectiveness of antibiotics. Using municipality level data, we show that the reform resulted in a reduction in children’s antibiotics use by about five per cent. The result is fairly robust to alternative empirical strategies, suggesting that welfare policies can have important indirect effects that should be taken into account.

Remittances, criminal violence and voter turnout

ABSTRACT How do financial remittances influence electoral participation in violent democracies? Previous work has focused on the ‘substitution effect’; if recipients depend on remittances for welfare rather than the state, they become disengaged from formal political processes and less likely to vote in elections. However, while remittances can be used to substitute for state provision of welfare goods, they cannot fully substitute for public security. In this paper, we posit that the ability of governments to contain crime and violence conditions the effect of remittances on electoral participation. Specifically, we argue that high levels of crime can negate the substitution effect and make remittance recipients more likely to vote. Using municipality-level data from Mexico and individual-level data from Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, we find that both the receipt of remittances and crime exposure significantly reduce individuals’ propensity to vote and that aggregate remittances and crime rates are correlated with lower turnout. Remittances can, however, negate the turnout-suppressing effects of crime, and crime can negate the turnout-suppressing effects of remittances. Our results suggest a need to account for government provision of both substitutable and non-substitutable goods when investigating the effects of remittances on political participation.

Agri-food activities in jeopardy—A territorial analysis of risks from natural hazards

According to the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) approach, this paper aims to return a method to assess disaster risk from adverse natural events as a function of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. Focusing on the Italian agri-food sector as a case-study and considering municipality-level data, a multi-hazard and multi-exposure approach is followed for risk assessment. In particular, both synthetic indicators and cluster analysis are performed. With regard to the implementation of DRR measures, this work suggests to devote proper attention to high-vulnerability municipalities.

Widening the gap: the influence of ‘inner areas’ on income inequality in Italy

Using administrative municipality-level data on fiscal declarations, we estimate the influence of ‘inner areas’ in the income distribution across Italy. To do that, we apply influence function regressions methods developed by Firpo et al. (Econometrica 77(3):953–973, 2009) to examine to what extent rurality and inner areas affect income inequality measures. Results highlight that inner areas have a positive effect in the Gini index, and a negative one in mean and median income. These effects are stable, in terms of magnitude, from 2012 to 2015. They hold even when controlling socioeconomic characteristics and region-level fixed effects. Impacts turn out to vary across Italian macro-regions.