Project description:BACKGROUND:Healthcare providers and law enforcement (LE) officers are among the most common first responders to injuring events. Despite frequent interface between the health system (HS) and LE sectors, the published evidence that supports their collaboration in injury surveillance, control and prevention has not been comprehensively reviewed. METHODS:We conducted a scoping review of literature published from 1990 to 2016 that focused on local and regional HS and LE collaborations in injury surveillance, control and prevention. Our aim was to describe what is known and what remains unexplored about these cross-sector efforts. RESULTS:128 articles were included in the final review. These were categorised by their focus on either surveillance activities or partnerships in injury control and prevention programmes. The majority of surveillance articles focused on road traffic injuries. Conversely, articles describing partnerships and programme evaluations primarily targeted the prevention of interpersonal violence. DISCUSSION:This review yielded two major findings: overall, the combination of HS and LE injury data added value to surveillance systems, especially as HS data augmented LE data; and HS and LE partnerships have been developed to improve injury control and prevention. However, there are few studies that have evaluated the impact and sustainability of these partnerships. CONCLUSIONS:The current evidence to support HS and LE collaboration in injury surveillance and control and prevention programmes is heterogeneous. Notable gaps suggest ample opportunity for further research and programme evaluation across all types of injury.
Project description:Compare arterial stiffness among law enforcement officers (LEOs) versus general population normative values and identify predictors of arterial stiffness in LEOs. Seventy male LEOs (age: 24-54 years) completed body composition, blood pressures, physical activity level, and carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV) measurements. T-tests and regression analyses were utilized to compare LEO data to normative data and predict cfPWV, respectively. Compared to similar age strata within the general population, cfPWV was lower among LEO's under 30-years (mean difference = -0.6 m·s-1), but higher among LEOs 50-55-years (mean difference = 1.1 m·s-1). Utilizing regression, age, relative body fat, and diastolic blood pressure explained the greatest variance in LEO's cfPWV (adj. R2 = 0.56, p < 0.001). This investigation demonstrated that arterial stiffness may progress more rapidly in LEOs and LEOs' relative body fat and blood pressure may primarily affect arterial stiffness and risk of CVD.
Project description:Law enforcement officers frequently encounter people with health conditions. We sought to estimate the rates, diagnoses, and characteristics of emergency department (ED) visits among patients transported directly by law enforcement. We analyzed statewide North Carolina Emergency Department data for adults, aged 18+ years, from 2009 to 2016. We estimated transport rates using census data; categorized primary ED diagnoses into 13 major and 8 substituent categories; compared county transport rates by rurality; and examined patient characteristics. There were 136,240 patients transported by law enforcement; annual rates increased from 186.9 (per 100,000 adult residents) in 2009 to 279.2 in 2016. Among visits, 67.7% were among men, the median age was 37 years, and 20.4% resulted in a hospital admission. Most common primary diagnoses were Mental Health Diagnoses (43.1%)-including Schizophrenia and other Psychotic Disorders (7.6%), Mood Disorders (9.7%), and Alcohol and Substance Use (10.7%)-followed by Injury and Poisoning (12.4%) and Circulatory conditions (4.1%). Involuntary commitments constituted 22% of all visits. The median transport rate in rural counties, 291.1, was 2 times that of large metro counties, 145.1. The visit rate increased by nearly 50% during the study period, with the highest rates in rural counties. Many transports were for Mental Illness and involuntary commitments. The relatively common occurrence of law enforcement transports suggests the need for greater research to understand factors influencing law enforcement transport decisions, the impact of these transports on patient health and safety, and the repercussions on patient care of a growing officer presence in EDs.
Project description:In view of the current severe situation of illegal land use in China, it is of great significance to explore the impact of the evolution and promotion of land law enforcement effectiveness, which will improve China's land law enforcement system and effectively curb illegal land use. This paper explains the changes and enhancements of the effectiveness of land law enforcement since the implementation of China's National Land Supervision System in terms of the deterrence, difficulty, and strength of land law enforcement, and explores the role of land law enforcement effectiveness in changing illegal land use behaviors from a theoretical level. Then, a corresponding empirical test was carried out using the provincial panel data of Mainland China from 2007 to 2016. The results show that the increase in land law enforcement deterrence and strength will help reduce the number of illegal land use cases, but it will drive the lawbreakers to "commit major cases in desperation", leading to the increase of the degree of illegal land use; and with the decrease of land law enforcement difficulty, the degree of illegal land use will be significantly reduced. At the end of this paper, several policy suggestions are put forward to effectively curb the illegal land use from the perspective of improving the land law enforcement system and enhancing the effectiveness of law enforcement.
Project description:The risk and threat of bioterrorism and biocrime have become a large concern and challenge for governments and society to enhance biosecurity. Law enforcement plays an important role in assessing and investigating activities involved in an event of bioterrorism or biocrime. Key to a successful biosecurity program is increased awareness and early detection of threats facilitated by an integrated network of responsibilities and capabilities from government, academic, private, and public assets. To support an investigation, microbial forensic sciences are employed to analyze and characterize forensic evidence with the goal of attribution or crime scene reconstruction. Two different molecular biology-based assays--real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and repetitive element PCR--are described and demonstrate how molecular biology tools may be utilized to aid in the investigative process. Technologies relied on by microbial forensic scientists need to be properly validated so that the methods used are understood and so that interpretation of results is carried out within the limitations of the assays. The three types of validation are preliminary, developmental, and internal. The first is necessary for rapid response when a threat is imminent or an attack has recently occurred. The latter two apply to implementation of routinely used procedures.
Project description:Highlights • In jurisdictions around the world, police have been enforcing COVID-19-related measures.• Researchers and civil society agree: criminalizing illnesses does more harm than good.• We describe two North American jurisdictions that share coronavirus data with police.• COVID-19 data policies will likely have broad ramifications for health data policy.• We present seven concrete alternatives to sharing health data with law enforcement. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in some jurisdictions, police have become involved in enforcing coronavirus-related measures. Relatedly, several North American jurisdictions have established COVID-19 data sharing protocols with law enforcement. Research across a range of fields has demonstrated that involving police in matters of public health disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable and does more harm than good. This is reflected in the consensus against COVID-19 criminalization that has emerged among civil society organizations focused on HIV, human rights, and harm reduction. The European Data Protection Board has also released guidelines against re-uses of COVID-19 data for law enforcement purposes. This article offers an overview of the harms of criminalizing illnesses and strategies for health stakeholders to seek alternatives to sharing COVID-19 data with police agencies while facilitating interoperability with healthcare first responders. It also presents case studies from two North American jurisdictions – Ontario and Minnesota – that have established routine COVID-19 data sharing with police. We recommended seven alternatives, including designating COVID-19 data as sensitive and implementing segmented interoperability with first responder agencies. These guidelines can help ensure that health information technology platforms do not become vehicles for the criminalization of COVID-19, and that health data stay within the health system.
Project description:We examine whether retaliatory violence exists between law enforcement and citizens while controlling for any social media contagion effect related to prior fatal encounters. Analyzed using a trivariate dynamic structural vector-autoregressive model, daily time-series data over a 21-month period captured the frequencies of police killed in the line of duty, police deadly use of force incidents, and social media coverage. The results support a significant retaliatory violence effect against minorities by police, yet there is no evidence of retaliatory violence against law enforcement officers by minorities. Also, social media coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement increases the risk of fatal victimization to both law enforcement officers and minorities. Possible explanations for these results are based in rational choice and terror management theories.
Project description:This study examines associations between individual racism, anticipatory racism-related stress, and anti-racism activism among Black adolescents (n = 443; Mage = 15.6; 57.4% female) and emerging adults (n = 447; Mage = 23.8; 77.6% female). The authors tested competing hypotheses about associations between individual racism and anti-racism activism on anticipatory racism-related stress. Findings indicated anticipatory racism-related stress may be both a catalyst and consequence of engagement in anti-racism activism for Black adolescents and emerging adults. Results for each age group varied by type of stress (physiological; psychological) and activism (low-risk; high-risk). Supporting youth engagement in anti-racism activism without increasing anticipatory racism-related stress is a key priority for meaningfully advancing scholarship on the development of anti-racism and pursuit of racial justice.
Project description:This randomized prospective trial aimed to assess the feasibility and efficacy of a team-based worksite health and safety intervention for law enforcement personnel. Four-hundred and eight subjects were enrolled and half were randomized to meet for weekly, peer-led sessions delivered from a scripted team-based health and safety curriculum. Curriculum addressed: exercise, nutrition, stress, sleep, body weight, injury, and other unhealthy lifestyle behaviors such as smoking and heavy alcohol use. Health and safety questionnaires administered before and after the intervention found significant improvements for increased fruit and vegetable consumption, overall healthy eating, increased sleep quantity and sleep quality, and reduced personal stress.
Project description:Regulatory enforcement of forest conservation laws is often dismissed as an ineffective approach to reducing tropical forest loss. Yet, effective enforcement is often a precondition for alternative conservation measures, such as payments for environmental services, to achieve desired outcomes. Fair and efficient policies to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) will thus crucially depend on understanding the determinants and requirements of enforcement effectiveness. Among potential REDD candidate countries, Brazil is considered to possess the most advanced deforestation monitoring and enforcement infrastructure. This study explores a unique dataset of over 15 thousand point coordinates of enforcement missions in the Brazilian Amazon during 2009 and 2010, after major reductions of deforestation in the region. We study whether local deforestation patterns have been affected by field-based enforcement and to what extent these effects vary across administrative boundaries. Spatial matching and regression techniques are applied at different spatial resolutions. We find that field-based enforcement operations have not been universally effective in deterring deforestation during our observation period. Inspections have been most effective in reducing large-scale deforestation in the states of Mato Grosso and Pará, where average conservation effects were 4.0 and 9.9 hectares per inspection, respectively. Despite regional and actor-specific heterogeneity in inspection effectiveness, field-based law enforcement is highly cost-effective on average and might be enhanced by closer collaboration between national and state-level authorities.