Geography of discarded needles in Montreal
A number of studies analyze the problem of discarded needles, but most of these studies are qualitative and mainly focus on the behaviours of intravenous drug users. However, it would be of considerable interest to determine the location of discarded needles in order to improve syringe management programs. The objective of this article is therefore to provide a spatio-temporal profile of discarded needles in the Centre-Sud neighbourhood of Montreal between 2010 and 2014. Two recent spatial analysis methods are employed: Network Kernel Density Estimation (NKDE) and I Local Indicators of Network-Constrained Clusters (ILINCS), which use network distance rather than Euclidean distance. Our findings reveal the existence of several important hot spots of discarded needles in this neighbourhood, most of which have remained stable over the five years in question. These results also show that the use of these new spatial analysis methods (NKDE and ILINCS) is entirely appropriate in the context of events occurring along street networks and that these methods deserve to be more widely used in urban geography.