Allen Bennett, Moore Brandi, Jent Victoria A, Goedel William C, Israel Khadija, Collins Alexandra B, Marshall Brandon D L, Cerdá Magdalena
Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, Department of Population Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, USA.
Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, Department of Population Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, USA; Department of Epidemiology, NYU School of Global Public Health, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2025 Aug;378:118156. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118156. Epub 2025 May 3.
To meet the needs of diverse communities, public health authorities are increasingly reliant on hyperlocal interventions targeting specific health issues and distinct populations. To facilitate epidemiological evaluation of hyperlocal interventions on community-level outcomes, we developed a framework of six practice-based considerations for researchers: spatial zone of impact, temporal resolution of impact, outcome of interest, definition of a plausible comparison group, micro vs. macro impacts, and practitioner engagement. We applied this framework to a case study of an impact evaluation of the New York City (NYC) overdose prevention centers (OPCs) on neighborhood-level drug-related arrests. We used drug arrest data from NYC from January 1, 2014, to September 30, 2023 and US Census data to conduct synthetic control modeling, comparing pre- and post-OPC arrests in the neighborhoods surrounding the two NYC OPCs (East Harlem and Washington Heights). We conducted sensitivity analyses to validate our results and compare our findings with those from a prior published study. Our findings indicate no significant change in drug-related arrests following the OPC openings. The mean absolute differences in daily drug-related arrests between the OPCs and their synthetic controls were 0.63 (p = 0.19) in East Harlem and 0.14 (p = 0.22) in Washington Heights. Sensitivity analyses corroborated our main results. Overall, findings demonstrate how our framework can be used to guide future epidemiological evaluations of diverse, hyperlocal public health interventions.
为满足不同社区的需求，公共卫生当局越来越依赖针对特定健康问题和不同人群的超本地化干预措施。为便于对超本地化干预措施对社区层面结果进行流行病学评估，我们为研究人员制定了一个基于六项实践的考量框架：影响的空间范围、影响的时间分辨率、感兴趣的结果、合理对照组的定义、微观与宏观影响以及从业者参与度。我们将此框架应用于一项关于纽约市（NYC）过量用药预防中心（OPC）对社区层面与毒品相关逮捕影响评估的案例研究。我们使用了2014年1月1日至2023年9月30日纽约市的毒品逮捕数据和美国人口普查数据进行合成对照建模，比较了纽约市两个OPC（东哈莱姆区和华盛顿高地）周边社区在OPC设立前后的逮捕情况。我们进行了敏感性分析以验证结果，并将我们的发现与之前发表的一项研究结果进行比较。我们的研究结果表明，OPC开放后与毒品相关的逮捕没有显著变化。在东哈莱姆区，OPC与其合成对照组之间每日与毒品相关逮捕的平均绝对差异为0.63（p = 0.19），在华盛顿高地为0.14（p = 0.22）。敏感性分析证实了我们的主要结果。总体而言，研究结果展示了我们的框架如何用于指导未来对各种超本地化公共卫生干预措施的流行病学评估。
