Thread by @mayatmiller

1/ 🚨 We got 14 years of gunshot data from the New York Police Department, and mapped each gunshot incident.

We looked at survival rates across the city and found some troubling and actionable trends (a thread):

2/ Over the past decade, the proportion of people dying from gunshots was consistently higher in Queens than any other borough.

Our first hypothesis was that this was linked to EMS response times. We crunched the numbers, and didn’t find anything conclusive.

3/ Then, we came across past research that found gunshot survival rates were tied to distance from a trauma center.

So, we mapped out all the trauma centers and trauma center beds in NYC, and @liladerm carried out a spatial analysis. The visuals and numbers popped out...

4/ The fatality rate for incidents that occurred more than three miles away from a trauma center was 27% higher than that for shootings that occurred within a one-mile drive.

Nowhere recorded more gunshots further away from a trauma center than southern Queens.

5/ We had been talking to families who had lost loved ones to gun violence in the area over the past decade, and shared our findings.

People expressed they long felt the area was under-invested in when it came to care.

We found that NYC reps had been warning of the same.

6/ In 2009, after two hospitals closed in Queen, the @NYCComptroller issued an alert warning of a “crisis in the hospital and health care system in much of Queens.”

But no new hospitals or trauma care options have opened since.

7/ What’s more, Jamaica Hospital -- which houses the sole trauma center that serves the south Queens region-- is struggling. We pulled its finances and found it was in the red 12 of the last 13 years.

“I’m not sure how you keep the doors open with that,” one expert told us.

8/ We asked the Mayor, the Governor and the State Department of Health to weigh in.

After all, the Gov. recently stepped in to allocate more than $600 million to Brooklyn hospitals that were facing financial woes.

9/ But, the Mayor and Gov. didn’t respond after acknowledging our questions.

The State Dept. of Health said its reviewing our findings, and is assessing areas of the state that may benefit from more trauma care. They expect finish this project by the end of 2020 or early 2021.

10/ In the meantime, a number of southern Queens residents who have already lost loved ones to gun violence are trying to find ways to address the immediate needs of others in the area who are at-risk of being in their position.

But, w/out serious help, they're not optimistic.

11/ Read the full story here, and meet the people who have been impacted by this unequal investment in trauma care across New York: bit.ly/2BfZabB

12/ A note on this project: none of this would have happened without the 🧠 s of @Sean_Kev and @liladerm, and the space + time provided by @teamtrace, @MOA_org and @THECITYNY.

👏 Collaborations👏are 👏 critical 👏