Citation

Latkin C, Yang C, Ehrhardt B, Hulbert A. Community Ment. Health J. 2013; 49(1): 106-109.

Affiliation

Department of Health, Behavior and Society, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 North Broadway, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA, clatkin@jhsph.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10597-012-9492-3

PMID

22297618

Abstract

In the US, there are no national statistics on encountering a dead body, which can be viewed as a measure of community health and a stressful life event. Participants for an HIV prevention intervention targeting drug users were recruited in areas of inner-city Baltimore, Maryland. Nine hundred and fifty-one respondents, most with a history of drug use, were asked "have you ever found a dead body?" and 17.0% reported they had. Leading causes of death were: violence (37%), natural causes (22.2%), drug overdose (21.6%), accidental death (3.1%), and suicide (2.5%). In multivariate logistic models, respondents with longer history of drug use and more roles in a drug economy were more likely to be exposed to a dead body. The study results suggest that this population has a high level of experiences with mortality associated with violence and drugs. To obtain a better understanding of community health, future studies should assess not only morbidity and mortality, but also how death and illness is experienced by the community.

Language: en