Already High Murder Rate Increased In New Orleans After Katrina

Main Category: Aid / Disasters
Also Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry;  Mental Health
Article Date: 31 Jul 2007 - 16:00 PDT

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While the overall population of New Orleans dropped considerably following Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the city, murder rates there climbed in the following two years.

A Tulane University researcher used estimated repopulation trajectories after Hurricane Katrina from the City of New Orleans Emergency Operations Center, the Louisiana Recovery Authority, Rand Corporation and an analysis of postal service change-of-address requests to estimate murder rates for 2005 and 2006. He found that murder rates jumped by 14 percent between 2004 and 2005 and by a staggering 69 percent between 2004 and 2006. The huge increase in 2006 began during the second quarter of that year and continued unabated through the rest of the year.

"Compared with rates in cities of comparable size, murder rates in New Orleans have been substantially higher since at least 2004, and the disparity has been worsening since then," the study's author said. The comparable national murder rate in 2004 was 13.2 per 100,000 people, compared with 57.1 in New Orleans. Two years later, the calculated murder rate in New Orleans was 96.6 per 100,000 people - more than eight times higher than a projected comparable national average of approximately 11.9.

"Murder Rates in New Orleans, 2004 to 2006."
Mark J. VanLandingham, PhD, MPH, Tulane University, New Orleans.

The American Journal of Public Health is the monthly journal of the American Public Health Association (APHA), the oldest organization of public health professionals in the world. APHA is a leading publisher of books and periodicals promoting sound scientific standards, action programs and public policy to enhance health.

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