Protocol - Neighborhood Safety

Personnel and Training Required

No specific training is needed if data are collected through a self-administered questionnaire. If interviewers administer the questionnaire, the interviewer must be trained to conduct personal interviews with individuals from the general population and found competent to administer these particular questions (i.e., tested by an expert) at the completion of this training. The interviewer should be trained to prompt respondents further if a "don’t know" response is provided.

Equipment Needs

These questions can be administered in a computerized or noncomputerized format (i.e., paper-and pencil instrument). Computer software is necessary to develop computer-assisted instruments. The interviewer will require a laptop computer or handheld computer to administer or to allow the respondent to self-administer a computer-assisted questionnaire.

Requirements

Requirement Category	Required
Major equipment	No
Specialized training	No
Specialized requirements for biospecimen collection	No
Average time of greater than 15 minutes in an unaffected individual	No

Mode of Administration

Interviewer-administered questionnaire

Lifestage

Adult

Participants

Adults, aged 18 years and older

Selection Rationale

The Mujahid et al. (2007) scale was selected for its brevity and because it taps into both feelings about safety and presence of crime. This scale has strong psychometric properties, and prior studies have shown that subjective measures of crime and disorder are correlated with their objective counterparts (Elo et al., 2009). Additionally, objective crime measures (e.g., geocoded police department records, national crime statistics at the neighborhood level) are not uniformly available across the United States.

Language

Chinese, English, Other languages available at source

Standards

Standard	Name	ID	Source
Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC)	Neighborhood safety proto	63028-5	LOINC
caDSR Form	PhenX PX210901 - Neighborhood Safety	6197287	caDSR Form

Derived Variables

None

Process and Review

The Expert Review Panel #2 (ERP 2) reviewed the measures in the Demographics, Environmental Exposures, and Social Environments domains.

Guidance from ERP 2 includes:

• Revised descriptions of the measure

Back-compatible: no changes to Data Dictionary

Previous version in Toolkit archive (link)

Protocol Name from Source

Mujahid, M. S., et al, Assessing the measurement properties of neighborhood scales: From psychometrics to ecometrics. AM J EPIDEMIOL, 2007

Source

Mujahid, M. S., Diez Roux, A. V., Morenoff, J. D., & Raghunathan, T. (2007). Assessing the measurement properties of neighborhood scales: From psychometrics to ecometrics. American Journal of Epidemiology, 165, 858-867.

General References

Elo, I. T., Mykyta, L., Margolis, R., & Culhane, J. F. (2009). Perceptions of neighborhood disorder: The role of individual and neighborhood characteristics. Social Science Quarterly, 90, 1039-1422.

Morenoff, J. (2003). Neighborhood mechanisms and the spatial dynamics of birth weight. American Journal of Sociology, 108, 976-1017.

Protocol ID

210901

Variables

Export Variables

Variable Name	Variable ID	Variable Description	dbGaP Mapping
PX210901_Feel_Safe_Walking_Neighborhood
	PX210901010000	I feel safe walking in my neighborhood, day more or night. show less	Variable Mapping
PX210901_Neighborhood_Safe_From_Crime
	PX210901030000	My neighborhood is safe from crime.	Variable Mapping
PX210901_Neighborhood_Violence
	PX210901020000	Violence is not a problem in my neighborhood.	Variable Mapping

Social Environments

Measure Name

Neighborhood Safety

Release Date

October 8, 2010

Definition

This measure is a questionnaire to assess the respondent’s perceptions about safety and crime in their neighborhoods.

Purpose

This measure is used to evaluate a respondent’s feelings toward neighborhood-level crime and safety. Studies show that neighborhood safety is relevant to a range of health outcomes, such as birth weight (Morenoff, 2003).

Keywords

Social environments, neighborhood safety, violence, community

Measure Protocols

Protocol ID	Protocol Name
210901	Neighborhood Safety

Publications

Gonzalez, R., et al. (2021) An update on the assessment of culture and environment in the ABCD Study (R): Emerging literature and protocol updates over three measurement waves. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. 2021 December; 52: 101021. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2021.101021

Wade, N. E., et al. (2021) Risk factors associated with curiosity about alcohol use in the ABCD cohort. Alcohol. 2021 May; 92: 11-19. doi: 10.1016/j.alcohol.2021.01.002

Moore, T. M., et al. (2020) Development of a scale battery for rapid assessment of risk and resilience. Psychiatry Research. 2020 June; 288: 10. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2020.112996

Zhang, H., et al. (2020) Parental and social factors in relation to child psychopathology, behavior, and cognitive function. Translational Psychiatry. 2020 February; 10(1): Article number: 80. doi: 10.1038/s41398-020-0761-6

Zucker, R. A, et al. (2018) Assessment of culture and environment in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study: Rationale, description of measures, and early data. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2018 August; 32: 107-120. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2018.03.004

Ortiz, A. P., et al. (2015) Methods in HPV Surveillance: Experiences from a Population-Based Study of HPV Infection among Women in the San Juan Metropolitan Area of Puerto Rico. P R Health Sci J. 2015 September; 34(3): 117-27.