Probabilistic Record Linkage of Two Gun Violence Data Sets

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Horng, Iris, Yin, Qishuo, Chan, William, Murray, Jared, Small, Dylan S.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Horng, Iris
Yin, Qishuo
Chan, William
Murray, Jared
Small, Dylan S.
author_facet Horng, Iris
Yin, Qishuo
Chan, William
Murray, Jared
Small, Dylan S.
contents Objective: Gun violence is a serious public health problem in the United States. The Gun Violence Archive (GVA) provides detailed geographic information, while the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) offers demographic, socioeconomic, and narrative data on gun homicides. We developed and tested a method for merging datasets to inform analysis and strategies to reduce gun violence rates in the United States. Methods: After preprocessing the data, we used a probabilistic record linkage program to link records from the GVA (n = 36,245) with records from the NVDRS (n = 30,592). We evaluated sensitivity (the false match rate) by using a manual approach. Results: The linkage returned 27,420 matches of gun violence incidents from the GVA and NVDRS datasets. Because of restricted details accessible from GVA online records, only 942 of these matched records could be manually evaluated. Our framework achieved a 90.12% (849 of 942 accuracy rate in linking GVA incidents with corresponding NVDRS records. Practice Implications: Electronic linkage of gun violence data from 2 sources is feasible and can be used to increase the utility of the datasets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_01054
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Probabilistic Record Linkage of Two Gun Violence Data Sets
Horng, Iris
Yin, Qishuo
Chan, William
Murray, Jared
Small, Dylan S.
Applications
Objective: Gun violence is a serious public health problem in the United States. The Gun Violence Archive (GVA) provides detailed geographic information, while the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) offers demographic, socioeconomic, and narrative data on gun homicides. We developed and tested a method for merging datasets to inform analysis and strategies to reduce gun violence rates in the United States. Methods: After preprocessing the data, we used a probabilistic record linkage program to link records from the GVA (n = 36,245) with records from the NVDRS (n = 30,592). We evaluated sensitivity (the false match rate) by using a manual approach. Results: The linkage returned 27,420 matches of gun violence incidents from the GVA and NVDRS datasets. Because of restricted details accessible from GVA online records, only 942 of these matched records could be manually evaluated. Our framework achieved a 90.12% (849 of 942 accuracy rate in linking GVA incidents with corresponding NVDRS records. Practice Implications: Electronic linkage of gun violence data from 2 sources is feasible and can be used to increase the utility of the datasets.
title Probabilistic Record Linkage of Two Gun Violence Data Sets
topic Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01054