Neighborhood Violence in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1996-2007 (ICPSR 28441)
Version Date: Sep 24, 2012 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Jeremy M. Wilson, Michigan State University, and RAND Corporation;
Steven M. Chermak, Michigan State University;
Edmund F. McGarrell, Michigan State University
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR28441.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
This study assessed the implementation and impact of the One Vision One Life (OVOL) violence-prevention strategy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2003, the rise in violence in Pittsburgh prompted community leaders to form the Allegheny County Violence Prevention Imitative, which became the OVOL program. The OVOL program sought to prevent violence using a problem-solving, data-driven model to inform how community organizations and outreach teams respond to homicide incidents. The research team examined the impact of the OVOL program on violence using a quasi-experimental design to compare violence trends in the program's target areas before and after implementation to (1) trends in Pittsburgh neighborhoods where One Vision was not implemented, and (2) trends in specific nontarget neighborhoods whose violence and neighborhood dynamics One Vision staff contended were most similar to those of target neighborhoods. The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police provided the violent-crime data, which the research team aggregated into monthly counts. The Pittsburgh Department of City Planning provided neighborhood characteristics data, which were extracted from the 2000 Census. Monthly data were collected on 90 neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1996 to 2007, resulting in 12,960 neighborhood-by-month observations.
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Funding View help for Funding
Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
Neighborhood
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
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The research team also collected information from clients in the One Vision One Life program through intake forms completed by OVOL community coordinators, conducted field observations and interviews with One Vision staff and key community stakeholders, and obtained community risk-assessment documents. However, these data are not available as a part of this data collection.
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The research team sought to determine how and to what extent the One Vision One Life (OVOL) violence-prevention strategy was implemented and examine the impact OVOL had on violence in the targeted and surrounding communities.
Study Design View help for Study Design
The research team examined the impact of the One Vision One Life (OVOL) program on violence using a quasi-experimental design to compare violence trends in the program's target areas before and after implementation to (1) trends in Pittsburgh neighborhoods where One Vision was not implemented, and (2) trends in specific nontarget neighborhoods whose violence and neighborhood dynamics One Vision staff contended were most similar to those of target neighborhoods. Specifically, the principal investigators examined the impact of One Vision on community violence using three measures: homicides, aggravated assaults, and aggravated assaults with a gun. The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police provided incident-level data for homicides occurring between January 1, 1997, and December 31, 2007, as well as for aggravated assaults and gun assaults between January 1, 1996, and December 31, 2007. The research team aggregated these data into monthly counts. The Pittsburgh Department of City Planning provided neighborhood characteristics data, which were extracted from the United States Census Bureau's Census 2000.
Sample View help for Sample
Monthly data were collected on 90 neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1996 to 2007, resulting in 12,960 neighborhood-by-month observations.
Time Method View help for Time Method
Universe View help for Universe
All neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1996-2007.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police provided the violent-crime data.
The Pittsburgh Department of City Planning provided the neighborhood characteristics data which were extracted from the United States Census Bureau's Census 2000.
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
The study contains a total of 167 variables including date variables, violent crime variables, and neighborhood characteristics variables. Date variables include month and year indicators. Violent crime variables include the monthly number of homicides, aggravated assaults, and aggravated assaults with a gun. Neighborhood characteristics variables include various socioeconomic and demographic measures such as the density of the neighborhood, the labor force indicators, the age and income level of the neighborhood population, the number of persons receiving public assistance, the percentage of housing units that are vacant, and the proportion of the population that moved to their current residence in the previous five years.
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
Not applicable.
Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales
None.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2012-09-24
Version History View help for Version History
- Wilson, Jeremy M., Steven M. Chermak, and Edmund F. McGarrell. Neighborhood Violence in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1996-2007. ICPSR28441-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2012-09-24. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR28441.v1
2012-09-24 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Standardized missing values.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.