Citation

Wishner AR, Schwarz DF, Grisso JA, Holmes JH, Sutton RL. Am. J. Public Health 1991; 81(11): 1474-1476.

Affiliation

Philadelphia Department of Public Health, PA 19146.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, American Public Health Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

1951806

PMCID

PMC1405681

Abstract

Violence has been recognized as a significant health problem. This study describes fatal and nonfatal interpersonal violence-related injury events over 1 year in an indigent African-American community in Philadelphia. Information on injuries was collected from emergency rooms, the Office of the Medical Examiner, and death certificate files. For persons aged 15 through 49 years, violence-related injury rates surpassed any other injury type. The overall violence-related injury rate was 28.7 per thousand population. Interpersonal violence-related injuries were important for the 0- to 4-year age group (9.19 injuries per 1,000 population), and continued as a major cause of morbidity through age 59 (12.08 injuries per 1,000 population). For more than half of the events, information from the emergency room chart was sufficient only to categorize the incident as a "fight" or that it was intentional; no further classification was possible.