Text-to-911 Saves Lives, but Data Suggests It Remains Rare

Health communication systems designed for rural, developing countries -- where hospitals are often understaffed and transportation is inadequate -- are being adapted to improve care in U.S. cities.

One-third to half of those killed by police are disabled, a recent report says. “Our problem isn’t with police,” one mental health advocate says, but both sides say officers need more training.

Portugal has gone perhaps the farthest in decriminalizing drug use. It hasn't stopped drug usage, but it has reduced deaths, the spread of H.I.V., drug crime, and imprisonment.

Many young Latina women live their lives in fear of gang violence. The Montgomery County Street Outreach Network rescues girls in danger and offers services to them in order to help them change their chances of success.

To address the food insecurity problem among its low-income students, Columbia University launched Swipes, a meal sharing app in which students with a surplus of “meal swipes” could donate them to students in need. But when that app struggled to function and roll out properly, Columbia looked downtown to New York University, where student Jon Chin launched a similarly purposed but more effectively designed app, Share Meals. So far, the app has enabled over a thousand meal donations, and is hoping to work with Columbia to share its code and expand its donor services.

Crime-tracking mobile apps give millions of Brazilians crowdsourced data on urban violence, alerting people to dangerous places and filling gaps in government data on shootings, robberies, and other risks. But apps such as Fogo Cruzado (“Crossfire”) and Onde Tem Tiroteio (“Where There's a Shooting”) offer statistically crude glimpses of crime, distorted by media and racial biases that one expert blames for myths about the risks people actually face.

Contact tracing apps have received a lot of attention since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, but researchers caution they should be used in conjunction with other tactics and not be relied on to help on their own. However, an early study has indicated that even when only fifteen percent of the population downloads a contact tracing app, infection rates are reduced by eight percent and deaths are reduced by six percent.

It turns out the old adage of knowing your neighbor really can help make your neighborhood safer. A study of more than 250 cities found that a key factor behind a drop in crime in the last 20 years was the mobilizing of citizens by nonprofit organizations like block clubs. In Milwaukee these “urban guardians” have helped bring communities together and foster safer spaces that also address urban blight.

Two insurance companies, Discovery and Dialdirect, implemented a smartphone app for drivers to report potholes in their city. The companies then fill the potholes and brand them with their logos.

An app called Visis translates text and photos to speech to help Nigerian people with visual impairments to live their lives independently.