Bridging Public Safety, Public Health, and Trauma-Informed Design at Rutgers, Newark

This month, Alexandra Heath and Dr. Krista Schroeder of TINI Studio had the privilege of visiting Rutgers University, Newark to observe the Newark Public Safety Collaborative (NPSC) Community Coalition meeting.

The NPSC team generously welcomed us into their process, sharing their data-driven framework, inviting our questions, and exploring new pathways to bridge public safety, public health, and trauma-informed built-environment design.

A Model of Data-Driven, Community-Led Public Safety

NPSC’s work continues to demonstrate what becomes possible when cities democratize access to data and center community expertise. Their November 2025 Crime Trends Newsletter highlights extraordinary progress:

Community voices at the center: NPSC’s coalition brings residents, community stakeholders, and partners together to co-develop safer neighborhoods.

Public Safety Highlights

According to NPSC’s latest analysis (Newsletter #53, Nov 7, 2025):

Violent crime in Newark is down 21% year-to-date compared to 2024.

Robberies decreased by 37%, the largest contributing factor to the decline in violent crime.

Homicides dropped by 22%, with seven fewer incidents.

Auto thefts declined by 19%.

NPSC also features a Public Safety Data Atlas as a publicly accessible mapping tool that visualizes crime concentration patterns and helps stakeholders coordinate real-time, place-based solutions.

Where Public Safety Meets Trauma-Informed Planning

TINI Studio’s method argues that public safety and trauma-informed planning are not separate domains, rather, they are interdependent systems.

Public safety shapes nervous system regulation.
Neighborhood stressors such as: violence, disorder, unsafe streets, or unpredictability activate chronic threat responses. This undermines health, learning, trust, and community cohesion. Reductions in violence and the presence of predictable systems directly support neurobiological safety, the foundation of trauma-informed design.

Built environments shape public safety outcomes.
Environmental cues like lighting, visibility, social activity, maintenance, street orientation, and access to services signal whether a place is safe or neglected. These signals influence behavior, collective efficacy, and place-based risk patterns.

Public health bridges the two.
Safety and design become public-health interventions when they measurably reduce stress loads, improve regulation, and create conditions for connection, mobility, and opportunity.

Why Planners and Public Health Leaders Should Follow NPSC’s Model

The Newark Public Safety Collaborative’s data model is a powerful example of what becomes possible when cities treat data as a shared public resource rather than a siloed institutional asset.

Their open-access Public Safety Data Atlas demonstrates how transparent, place-based analytics can help communities understand where patterns of risk and protection cluster, empowering residents, planners, and advocates to co-produce solutions.

For planners and public health practitioners, models like NPSC’s point the way forward:

Cross-sector data dashboards that integrate public safety, public health, environmental quality, and neighborhood design.

Community-facing tools that democratize access to analytics and reinforce trust through transparency.

Shared governance structures where universities, city agencies, community organizations, and residents collaborate using the same evidence base.

By creating dashboards that track not only crime but also health indicators, environmental burdens, school readiness, mobility access, and neighborhood stressors, communities can build a clearer picture of how place-based inequities shape well-being.

When planners and public health leaders partner with groups like NPSC, or work to create similar networks in their own cities, they lay the groundwork for evidence-driven action, more effective interventions, and a more equitable distribution of safety and health across neighborhoods.