“Crime science”
and
“Epidemiology” -
Parallel worlds ?
Paul Fine
LSHTM
Outline
•
background
•
words
•
history
•
methods > applications
•
implications
Words …
•
“Crime science”
•
“Epidemiology”
‘epidemiology’ - etymology
epi = upon
demos = people
ology = logic, study
Hippocrates (c. 460 BCE) used the terms:
epidemion : for diseases that visited the population –
hence our word “epidemic”
endemion : for diseases that resided in the
population – hence our word “endemic”
‘epidemiology’ - current definitions:
• “Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or
health-determinant patterns in a society. It is the cornerstone
method of public health research” (Wikipedia )
• “The study of the distribution and determinants of health-related
states or events in specified populations, and the application of this
study to the control of health problems” (Last J, Dictionary of
Epidemiology)
‘epidemiology’ - current definitions:
• “Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or
health-determinant patterns in a society. It is the cornerstone
method of public health research” (Wikipedia )
• “The study of the distribution and determinants of health-related
states or events in specified populations, and the application of this
study to the control of health problems” (Last J, Dictionary of
Epidemiology)
Emphasis on health (and disease )
dates back to Hippocrates
‘epidemiology’ - current definitions:
• “Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or
health-determinant patterns in a society. It is the cornerstone
method of public health research” (Wikipedia )
• “The study of the distribution and determinants of health-related
states or events in specified populations, and the application of this
study to the control of health problems” (Last J, Dictionary of
Epidemiology)
Emphasis on health (and disease )
dates back to Hippocrates
That’s too bad - as word and methods
apply to anything in a population
“London Epidemiological Society”
1850 - 1907
Anonymous letter (signed “Pater”) to Lancet in 1848
"Will that dreadful scourge the cholera visit our island again ?
If so, are medical men prepared to wage a war against it ? ….
meetings should be held in different localities…."
Led to first gathering, in 1850 – in Hanover Square
About 100 physicians met (including John Snow, William Farr,
William Budd, Thomas Addison, Thomas Babington, …)
Society’s name - first use of word “epidemiological”
Medical emphasis throughout society’s history ….
“London Epidemiological Society”
1850 - 1907
Anonymous letter (signed “Pater”) to Lancet in 1848
"Will that dreadful scourge the cholera visit our island again ?
If so, are medical men prepared to wage a war against it ? ….
meetings should be held in different localities…."
Led to first gathering, in 1850 – in Hanover Square
About 100 physicians met (including John Snow, William Farr,
William Budd, Thomas Addison, Thomas Babington, …)
Society’s name - first use of word “epidemiological”
Medical emphasis throughout society’s history ….
John Snow - local hero
and “father” of epidemiology
GP in Soho (Frith Street)
interested in asphyxia of newborns …
witnessed one of first uses of ether anaesthesia - 28 December 1846
(by James Robinson – dentist on Gower Street)
recognised importance of ambient temperature
tabulated vapour pressure of ether - 16 January 1847
became well known anaesthetist… and authority on behaviour of gasses
leading him to argue against miasma theory of cholera
!
!
John Snow and Cholera 1849 - 54
Ovelapping pipe networks of two
water companies (Lambeth and
Southwark & Vauxhall) south of
Thames. The Lambeth Company (red)
moved source upstream in 1852 –
Snow predicted lower cholera risk in
houses served by that company –
confirmed 1854
Outbreak in Soho, August-September
1854, clustered around water pump –
“... and because of what I said, the
handle of the pump was removed.”
Note Snow’s “Voronoi diagram” – a
cartographical first !
“Snow’s law”
The successful public health
epidemiologist arrives after
the peak, and rides the downslope home to glory….
A few people saw broad implications
Eg Ronald Ross (2nd Nobel Laureate in Medicine - 1902)
From Appendix entitled: “Theory of happenings” in 2nd
edition of his book “The Prevention of Malaria” (1911)
“We shall deal with time to time variations not only of
malaria, but of all disease, and not only of diseases of
man, but those of any living organisms. Still further, as
infection is only one of many kids of events which may
happen to such organisms, we shall deal with happenings
in general.”
Epidemiology –
as an academic discipline
Departments of Epidemiology
(in schools of public health) eg
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Division (and Professor) of Epidemiology and
Vital Statistics (Major Greenwood) - 1927
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health – Baltimore USA
first Department of Epidemiology - 1919
first Professor of Epidemiology – 1930
Major growth after WWII
Departments and teaching typically linked with
medical statistics …
Some
Textbooks (with epidemiology in the title)
A natural affinity...
• Disease and crime, by definition, are conditions which all societies
seek to minimise ....
• Similar vocabulary: Crime as a disease.... a “cancer”... an epidemic ;
susceptibility as victimhood....
• Epidemiologists as “medical detectives”
• Importance of evaluating prevention and treatment protocols ....
Drug Addiction, Crime or Disease?
Interim and Final Reports of the Joint Committee of the
American Bar Association and the American Medical
Association on Narcotic Drugs.
Theory of crime epidemic: What is
“dispositional” explanation for events?
Posted by: adonis49 on: June 28, 2011
Epidemiology – as methodology
(for studying things in populations )
Typical epidemiology course syllabus
(at least in health context):
• data collection and quality
• basic study designs and logic
• analytic methods
• “special” techniques
• ethics
Epidemiology – as methodology
(for studying things in populations )
Typical epidemiology course syllabus
(at least in health context):
• data collection and quality
• basic study designs and logic
• analytic methods
• “special” techniques
• ethics
Data collection and quality
• Routine (notifications) vs active collection
• Sampling
• Questionnaires (design and administration)
• Measurement
• Random versus systematic error (“bias”)
• Validity - sensitivity and specificity
• Repeatability
• Validation ….. eg range and cross checks
• Missing data and imputation
Data collection and quality
• Routine (notifications) vs active collection
• Sampling
• Questionnaires (design and administration)
• Measurement
• Random versus systematic error (“bias”)
• Validity - sensitivity and specificity
• Repeatability
• Validation ….. eg range and cross checks
• Missing data and imputation
Aren’t
these just
fancy
words for
…
“trained
and
organised
common
sense” ?
Study designs and logic
Epidemiological studies
“Observational”
“Intervention”
“Descriptive”
Cross-sectional
survey
Longitudinal
Survey
“Analytical”
Ecological
(correlation)
Study
Cohort
Study
Casecontrol
Study
Clinical or
Community
Trial
Study designs and logic
Epidemiological studies
“Observational”
“Intervention”
“Descriptive”
Cross-sectional
survey
Longitudinal
Survey
“Analytical”
Ecological
(correlation)
Study
Cohort
Study
Casecontrol
Study
Clinical or
Community
Trial
Study designs and logic
Epidemiological studies
“Observational”
“Intervention”
“Descriptive”
What... Who... When
How many...... Where ...
Cross-sectional
survey
Longitudinal
Survey
“Analytical”
How... Why..
Ecological
(correlation)
Study
Cohort
Study
Casecontrol
Study
Clinical or
Community
Trial
“Descriptive” studies
• cross sectional surveys
An examination of the health and wellbeing of childless women: A cross-sectional
exploratory study in Victoria, Australia.
Graham ML, Hill E, Shelley JM, Taket AR. BMC Womens Health. 2011 Nov 10;11(1):47.
Economics Letters 96 (2007) 264 – 268
Does income inequality lead to more crime? A comparison of cross-sectional and time-series
analyses of United States counties.
Jesse Brush
Yale Law School, 76 Westland Road, Weston, 02493 MA, USA
• longitudinal follow-up studies
A prospective longitudinal study of children's theory of mind and adolescent
involvement in bullying.
Shakoor S, Jaffee SR, Bowes L, Ouellet-Morin I, Andreou P, Happé F, Moffitt TE, Arseneault L. J
Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2011 Nov 14. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02488.x.
Trajectories of crime at places: a longitudinal study of street segments in the city of Seattle
David Weisburd, Shawn Bushway, Cynthia Lum, Sue-Ming Yang.
Criminology May 2004; 42,2: 283 -
“Analytical studies”
Cause
effect paradigm….
“Risk factors”
= things associated with occurrence
of an
outcome
of interest
= may be “causal”….
or not (ie the observed association
may be spurious, or indirect…
… ie it may be “confounded”)
Identification of (high) risk groups
=
“profiling “ (?)
Ecological (correlation) studies
Breast cancer -
Eg comparing crude statistics between populations or over time ….
Danger !
Ecological (correlation) studies
Eg comparing crude statistics between populations or over time ….
Poverty (<1$/day)
Homicide rate
Danger !
Analytical studies
The basic 2 by 2 table
Outcome (disease or social) status
Yes
No
Yes
a
b
a+b
No
c
d
c+d
a+c
b+d
The basic analytical 2 by 2 table
Outcome (disease or social) status
Yes
No
Yes
a
b
a+b
No
c
d
c+d
a+c
b+d
Cohort logic compares rows: eg (a+b) vs (c+d) over time
a/(a+b)
c/(c+d)
= incidence rate ratio
(= 1 if no effect)
Cohort studies
Illicit opiates and crime: results of an untreated user cohort
study in Toronto
B Fischer, W Medved, M Kirst… - Canadian J. Criminology, 2001 -
The effects of a jail diversion program on incarceration: A retrospective cohort
study. Hoff, Rani A.; Baranosky, Madelon V.; Buchanan, Josephine; Zonana,
Howard; Rosenheck, Robert A. J Am Acad Psychiatry and the Law, Vol 27(3), 1999,
377-386.
The basic analytical 2 by 2 table
Outcome (disease or social) status
Yes
No
Yes
a
b
a+b
No
c
d
c+d
a+c
b+d
Case control
a/c
b/d
logic compares columns: eg (a+b) vs (c+d)
= “odds ratio”
(= 1 if no effect)
Case control studies
Case control studies
Case-Control Study of the Relationship of Functioning to Suicide in a
Community-Based Sample of Individuals with Schizophrenia in China.
Kasckow J, Liu N, Phillips MR.
Community Ment Health J. 2011 Oct 26. [Epub ahead of print]
Psoriasis and hypertension: a case-control study.
Armesto S, Coto-Segura P, Osuna CG, Camblor PM, Santos-Juanes J.
J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2011 May 14. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-3083.2011.04108.x.
A Matched Case-Control Study of Convenience Store Robbery Risk Factors
Scott A. Hendricks, MS, Douglas P. Landsittel, PhD , Harlan E. Amandus, PhD, Jay
Malcan, PhD, Jennifer Bell, PhD JOEM Volume 41, Number 11, November 1999,
995
National case-control study of homicide offending and gun ownership.
Gary Kleck, Michael Hogan. Social Problems. May 1999 v46 i2 p275(1).
Intervention studies (trials)
Randomised controlled trial as the “gold standard” for
demonstrating causality
demonstrating effectiveness of interventions
Intervention studies (trials)
From the British Medical Journal, February 5th 2011….
Intervention studies (trials)
From the British Medical Journal, February 5th 2011….
Analytic methods
Many..... In particular
• Multivariate methods
o Identification of “confounding”
eg to untangle spurious associations
(as between alcohol and lung cancer)
Alcohol
!?
Lung cancer
Analytic methods
Many..... In particular
• Multivariate methods
o Identification of “confounding”
eg to untangle spurious associations
(as between alcohol and lung cancer)
Alcohol
!?
Smoking
Lung cancer
“Special techniques”
Several..... for example
• Space- time clustering analysis
eg to search for evidence of micro-environmental hazards or evidence
of contagion
• Twin, “family segregation”, or “genome wide association” studies
eg to search for evidence of genetic determinants
• Simulation
eg to predict whether closing schools or airports would be useful in
influenza control, or whether it would be cost-effective to guve HPV
vaccine to boys as well as girls
“Implications”
• There should be broader appreciation of the overlaps in
methods and issues of different (population) (social and
medical) sciences ….
• eg public health …. crime science … education ... sociology …
economics ……. political science ….
• and more contact between the academic disciplines
• (medical) “epidemiologists” should be less narrow in
defining their field ….
• “epidemiology” is just organised scientific method……
… and should be taught in primary school.
“Crime science”
and
“Epidemiology” -
Parallel worlds ?
Paul Fine
LSHTM