Risk factors contributing to motor vehicle collisions in an environment of uncertainty

The concepts of medical geography provide a framework for investigating the importance of people–place interactions in risk analysis and assessing the roles of individual, behavioral, and environmental risk factors. Analyses of data on motor vehicle collisions in Connecticut in 1995 and 1996 are used to illustrate geographical variations in the characteristics of collisions. A method is presented for identifying high frequency collision sites for particular collision types. Proportions and odds ratios calculated as local statistics are used to highlight sites where the individual, behavioral, or environmental characteristics of collisions differ significantly from those in the state as a whole. These differences have implications for developing better statistical models for knowledge synthesis and policy development.