Neighborhoods and Health: Assessing “Neighborhood Effects” on Accidental Drug Deaths

In this paper, I applied criminological theory to the epidemiological understanding of health-related deviant behavior such as problematic drug use. To that end, I built and subsequently tested an epidemiological model informed by macro-level criminological theory that helped explain the spatial distribution of accidental drug deaths across neighborhoods in a heavily suburban area (i.e. unincorporated Miami-Dade County, FL), analyzing toxicology reports from the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department. Estimating a negative binomial analysis of drug abuse that predicted drug-related death rates from 2013 through 2017, I drew insights from the following place-based control theories or perspectives in macro criminology: social disorganization, relative deprivation, immigration revitalization, social institutions, and drug enforcement. I found support for social disorganization theory and the immigration revitalization and social institutions perspectives. Since drug abuse is deviant behavior that is both criminal and health-related, criminology and epidemiology appear to overlap with one another. Epidemiology, the study of disease distribution among populations, would profit by integrating insights from social control theories of criminology. Researchers interested in the social context of neighborhoods and the clustering of drug deaths can apply macrocriminological theory to social epidemiology, which concerns itself with the social determinants of health.