Too far for comfort? Situational access to emergency medical care and violent assault lethality

Abstract

This research demonstrates the relationship between situational access to emergency medical care and assault lethality, by comparing attempted and completed murders in Greater London, England, over a five-year period (N = 1512 victims). Access to emergency care was operationalised using the time taken to contact emergency services, the distance from the nearest ambulance station, and the distance to the nearest emergency department. Notification lags in excess of 1 h were associated with significantly higher lethality, after controlling for offence and victim characteristics. The distance predictors were non-significant, which could be due to observed distances in our urban setting being overwhelmingly short (< 5 miles) and homogeneous.