Ethnically diverse neighbourhoods ‘safer’

11 Apr 2014 Residents of ethnically diverse neighbourhoods can expect to experience fewer assaults than residents of neighbourhoods with little or no ethnic diversity, according to a new way of measuring violence. Ian Warren, from The University of Manchester, says public health data on assaults give a more reliable picture of criminality than official police figures, criticised by the UK Statistics Authority earlier this year. The UKSA withdrew 'gold-standard' status from police figures in January, pointing to 'accumulating evidence' of unreliability. But patient assaults reported by the ambulance service, A&E and hospital admissions, says Mr Warren, can give a much more reliable picture of how violent crime affects different neighbourhoods. And according to the researcher, people living in poor neighbourhoods are ten times more likely to attend the emergency department as the result of an assault than people in the most advantaged neighbourhoods. Using Greater Manchester public health data over three years between 2008 and 2010, he further discovered that residents of transient neighbourhoods could be up to three times as likely to expect violent crime. The research also found that those neighbourhoods with the highest off-licence alcohol outlet densities were projected to experience 172% more hospital admissions for assault due to serious injury.