Using Health data to analyse repeat victimisation in Scotland.

ObjectiveThe aim of this project is to analyse temporal patterns of repeat violent victimisation (RVV) in Scotland using administrative data and explore the extent to which these patterns are associated with underlying health vulnerabilities (related to mental health and problematic alcohol and/or drug use) and vary by individual socio-demographic characteristics. ApproachViolence in Scotland, and especially RVV, is a ‘key public health priority’. However, very little is known about the link between violence and other health vulnerabilities at an individual level, which may be useful in informing prevention approaches. This paper uses data on violence-related ambulance call-outs linked to hospital records containing information on wider health vulnerabilities. We use survival mixture models to identify and characterise population sub-groups, based on time to repeated violent episodes and explore how different health-related factors are associated with RVV and how this varies across sub-populations. ResultsWe identify two classes of RVV with two distinct survival trajectories: a ‘low vulnerability’ class and a ‘high vulnerability’ class. People in the high vulnerability class expe