Neighborhood Social Capital and Adolescents’ Perceptions of Safety During Daily Activities

• In Event: Crime and Place: Interactions between People and Places

Abstract

Although much is known about the impact of neighborhood conditions and social ties on the development and wellbeing of adolescents, little is known about how these conditions impact perceptions of adolescents‘ safety. Feeling unsafe can have negative consequences, ranging from a sedentary behavior to long-term negative health impacts. In response, we accessed data from a population study of 200 youth (ages 10-18 years) enrolled with random digit dial in Philadelphia during 2009-2012. GIS-assisted interviews were conducted to map the path of each participant’s daily activities. These data were overlaid on mapped layers of the built and social environment that were managed and analyzed using Risk Terrain Modeling. Our key predictor was a measure of social capital, built as a composite variable derived from several indicators of social trust reported by respondents to a city-wide household telephone survey. Mixed effects regression, controlling for temporal correlation within subjects, was used to understand how adolescents’ perceptions of safety varied as a function of their social environment and social capital in the neighborhoods they traversed. This presentation will discuss the methodology and results.

Authors

• Douglas Wiebe, University of Pennsylvania

• Kalen Flynn, University of Pennsylvania