Alcohol sale status and homicide victimization in Kentucky, 2005-2012: Is there a spatial association?

Hanan Abdulghafoor Khaleel, Sabrina Brown, Steven Fleming, W. Jay Christian

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

To date, the association between the alcohol sale status of dece-dents’ residence and alcohol-related homicide victimization have not been studied as far as we know. The current study aims to: i) determine whether homicide victims who were residents of wet counties had higher odds of testing positive for alcohol than their counterparts in moist or dry counties after adjusting for con-founders; ii) determine whether homicides and alcohol-related homicides tend to cluster spatially; iii) determine whether the aforementioned associations exist only in highly-populated counties. A multilevel logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the data on homicide victims in the Kentucky Violent Death Reporting System from 2005 to 2012. Spatial statistics were used to determine the spatial autocorrelation in rates of homicides and alcohol-related homicides. Overall, 944 homicide victims were included. The male to female ratio was 3:1. About 32.8% of homicide victims tested positive for alcohol. About 33.0% of homicide decedents who were residents in wet counties tested positive for alcohol compared to 32.5% of their counterparts in moist/dry counties. Residence in wet counties was associated with a statistically insignificant increase in the unadjusted odds ratio (OR) of alcohol-related homicide victimization (OR=1.20, 95% CI=0.81-1.77) as well as the adjusted odds (aOR=1.33, 95% CI=0.83-2.12). There was no association between population size and alcohol-related homicide rate.

Original languageEnglish
Article number747
JournalGeospatial health
Volume14
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - May 14 2019

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© H.A. Khaleel et al.

Keywords

  • Alcohol
  • Homicide
  • Sale status
  • USA

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Medicine (miscellaneous)
  • Health(social science)
  • Geography, Planning and Development
  • Health Policy

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