Analyzing AIAN drug related death variation between PL280 and non-PL280 states. by Gabriel Barrett
My project is examining variation in drug-related deaths amongs the American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) populations. Specifically I am interested in whether drug-related deaths are higher on Native American reservations that lack criminal jurisdiction under Public Law 280. Public Law 280 is a law passed in 1953 that gave certain states the ability to assume legal jurisdiction on Native American Reservations that was otherwise held by the federal government. In the process, it gave the states jurisdiction over all minor and municipal criminal offenses. In practice what that means is that a Tribal Authority on a reservation under public law 280 has no authority to enforce municipal laws unless county law enforcement delegate some authority to it. Tribal Authorities on reservations not covered by public law 280 can make and enforce their own municipal codes.
I am researching if the difference in who is responsible for criminal jurisdiction explains variation in drug-related deaths. The idea being that tribal authorities are better able to handle drug use and drug distribution on reservations than county authorities. I am conducting this research as part of my work as an intern with the University of Chicago Health Lab.
The visualizations show clear differences in the AIAN drug related death rate in counties where Tribes lack criminal jurisdiction and estimated effects get larger as controls are added.
Open the 'final_visuals.ipynb' file and hit run all. Make sure all packages specified in the first cell are installed.
Canonicalized. (2023). County centroids [Data set]. Kaggle. https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/canonicalized/county-centroids
National Center for Health Statistics. (2022). Mortality Multiple Cause Files, 1998-2020 [Data set]. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/vitalstatsonline.htm#Mortality_Multiple
Vega-Datasets Contributors. (2024). US 10m TopoJSON. In Vega Datasets. https://github.com/vega/vega-datasets/blob/main/data/us-10m.json
Vega-Datasets Contributors. (2024). US 10m TopoJSON. In Vega Datasets. https://github.com/vega/vega-datasets/blob/main/data/us-10m.json
