Associating Locality-Level Characteristics With Surviving the Holocaust: A Multilevel Approach to the Odds of Being Deported and to Risk of Death Among Jews Living in Dutch Municipalities

Throughout the final years of the twentieth century and into the beginning of the twenty-first, violence has been one of the main public health issues in Latin America, a region which has some of the highest mortality rates due to violence in the world. However, there seems to be an uneven geographical distribution of such instances. We reviewed epidemiological data on violence globally and in Latin America, and here, we discuss differences between the Latin American countries in the context of a sociological framework as well as from a public health perspective. Our results indicate marked differences by country in terms of rates of violence. Countries such as Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay, have low violence mortality rates; Peru, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Panama, and Paraguay have moderate rates, and Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras and Venezuela have high to extremely high mortality rates. Factors related to violence include social inequalities, lack of employment opportunities, urban segregation, a culture of masculinity, local drug markets, and the availability of firearms and widespread use of alcohol. The observed homicide variability between Latin American countries can be explained largely by differences in the countries' social contexts and political models. In those countries where homicide rates are extremely high, governments should review their current policies and take preventive actions. Fortunately increasingly nowadays there are promising advancements in that direction.

Nancy Krieger and colleagues argue that law-enforcement–related deaths in the United States should be treated as notifiable conditions, which would allow public health departments to report these data in real-time.

To strengthen existing evidence on the role of neighborhoods in chronic disease onset in later life, we investigated associations between multiple neighborhood features and 2-year onset of 6 common conditions using a national sample of older adults. Neighborhood features for adults aged 55 years or older in the 2002 Health and Retirement Study were measured by use of previously validated scales reflecting the built, social, and economic environment. Two-level random-intercept logistic models predicting the onset of heart problems, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and arthritis by 2004 were estimated. In adjusted models, living in more economically disadvantaged areas predicted the onset of heart problems for women (odds ratio [OR] = 1.20; P < .05). Living in more highly segregated, higher-crime areas was associated with greater chances of developing cancer for men (OR = 1.31; P < .05) and women (OR = 1.25; P < .05). The neighborhood economic environment is associated with heart disease onset for women, and neighborhood-level social stressors are associated with cancer onset for men and women. The social and biological mechanisms that underlie these associations require further investigation.