Milwaukee – The rates of homicides and nonfatal shootings in Milwaukee have risen steadily throughout 2020. Through the month of July, there was an approximate 90 percent increase in homicides and a more than 65 percent increase in nonfatal shootings. To provide up-to-date analysis on these trends and to support collective anti-violence work in Milwaukee, local researchers have developed interactive online dashboards that visually display this data.
Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) Institute for Health and Equity researchers with the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC), with support from the Milwaukee Police Department, created the homicide and nonfatal shooting dashboards to explore the data on violence in the city in an interactive format. Updated monthly, the dashboards include maps and charts displaying information such as total victim counts by year; type of offense; victims by month, day of week and time of day; victim and suspect demographics, and number of victims by geographic area.
Constance Kostelac, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology, MHRC director and member of the Institute for Health and Equity at MCW, oversaw the development of the project. “The dashboards provide a more current and interactive way for a wide variety of partners, stakeholders and, importantly, community members, to access data on key indicators of violence in Milwaukee,” Dr. Kostelac said. “The information provides another critical tool as we work collaboratively to identify opportunities for change to reduce and prevent future violence.”
Collaborators on the project include Mallory O’Brien, PhD, MHRC founding director and assistant professor of epidemiology at MCW; Michael Totoraitis, MHRC program manager and PhD candidate in public and community health at MCW, and Andrew Yaspan, a biomedical informatics analyst/developer at MCW’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute.
This project is supported by the police department, the Homicide Review Executive Committee and the Bob and Linda Davis Foundation.
“The Milwaukee Police Department values transparency, particularly when it comes to data sharing,” said Acting Police Chief Michael Brunson, Sr. “We are greatly appreciative of our ongoing partnership with the MHRC.”
To view the homicide and nonfatal shooting dashboards live please click here.
About the Medical College of Wisconsin
With a history dating back to 1893, The Medical College of Wisconsin is dedicated to leadership and excellence in education, patient care, research and community engagement. More than 1,400 students are enrolled in MCW’s medical school and graduate school programs in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Central Wisconsin in. MCW’s School of Pharmacy opened in 2017. A major national research center, MCW is the largest research institution in the Milwaukee metro area and second largest in Wisconsin. In the last ten years, faculty received more than $1.5 billion in external support for research, teaching, training and related purposes. This total includes highly competitive research and training awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Annually, MCW faculty direct or collaborate on more than 3,100 research studies, including clinical trials. Additionally, more than 1,600 physicians provide care in virtually every specialty of medicine for more than 2.8 million patients annually.
