Reducing violence by transforming neighborhoods: a natural experiment in Medellin, Colombia.

ABSTRACT: Neighborhood-level interventions provide an opportunity to better understand the impact that neighborhoods have on health. In 2004, municipal authorities in Medellín, Colombia, built a public transit system to connect isolated low-income neighborhoods to the city's urban center. Transit-oriented development was accompanied by municipal investment in neighborhood infrastructure. In this study, the authors examined the effects of this exogenous change in the built environment on violence. Neighborhood conditions and violence were assessed in intervention neighborhoods (n = 25) and comparable control neighborhoods (n = 23) before (2003) and after (2008) completion of the transit project, using a longitudinal sample of 466 residents and homicide records from the Office of the Public Prosecutor

SUBMITTER: Cerda M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3353133 | biostudies-literature | 2012 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature