A key concern in crime analysis is the “hidden crime” problem. Crime events unaccounted for in police records limit the external validity of official statistics and, more importantly, hinder the ability of the police to manage crime and utilize their resources effectively. The problem is exacerbated in proactive initiatives aimed at curbing violence through hotspot policing, where inaccuracies and imprecision, or, worse, no data at all, diminish prevention efforts. Previous studies have sought to overcome the data problem by juxtaposing police records with ambulance data on assault callouts and have found profound disparities. Specifically, researchers matched “crime hotspots” with “ambulance hotspots” (rather than individual events) because patient confidentiality considerations have prevented health professionals from sharing subject-level data with the police. However, health services can safely share spatial data on wider areas that do not disclose personal information. We build on this line of inquiry by analyzing data from the Thames Valley, United Kingdom, and observing spatial hotspots of different sizes. The results demonstrate that while the police and ambulance services attend to the same communities and similar types of facilities, the police are “blinded” to the location of nearly 8 out of 10 assaults. The incongruency is shown even with severe assaults, but to a lesser extent. We then simulate the reduction in injuries if the police had access to health data at different spatial levels and show that even under the most conservative set of assumptions, such an approach can prevent between 113 and 116 violent injuries each year that might otherwise require hospitalization.

中文翻译：

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使用基于地点的救护车数据克服未报告的暴力：基于健康数据绘制热点地图以预防犯罪举措的案例

犯罪分析的一个关键问题是“隐藏犯罪”问题。警方记录中下落不明的犯罪事件限制了官方统计数据的外部有效性，更重要的是，阻碍了警方有效管理犯罪和利用其资源的能力。在旨在通过热点警务遏制暴力的主动举措中，这一问题变得更加严重，其中不准确和不精确，或者更糟糕的是，根本没有数据，削弱了预防工作。之前的研究试图通过将警察记录与救护车的袭击数据进行比较来解决数据问题，并发现了巨大的差异。具体来说，研究人员将“犯罪热点”与“救护车热点”（而不是个别事件）进行匹配，因为出于对患者保密性的考虑，卫生专业人员无法与警方共享主题级数据。然而，卫生服务可以安全地共享更广泛区域的空间数据，而不会泄露个人信息。我们通过分析来自英国泰晤士河谷的数据并观察不同规模的空间热点，以此为基础进行调查。结果表明，虽然警察和救护车服务服务于相同的社区和类似类型的设施，但警察对近十分之八的袭击事件的地点“视而不见”。即使在严重的攻击中也会表现出不一致，但程度较轻。然后，我们模拟了如果警察能够获取不同空间级别的健康数据，伤害的减少情况，并表明即使在最保守的假设下，这种方法每年也可以防止 113 到 116 起可能需要住院治疗的暴力伤害。