Citation

Wilson RF, Blair JM. Lancet 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02585-0

PMID

38342124

Abstract

In the USA, homicide is a major public health problem, and in 2020, it was the seventh leading cause of death among women aged 25-44 years. Although homicide affects women of all ages, races, and ethnicities, homicide--including those resulting from firearm injuries--disproportionately affects Black women. Bernadine Y Waller and colleagues examined racial inequities in homicide rates and injury methods (eg, firearms) among Black and White women in the USA aged 25-44 years. Waller and colleagues' study used data from CDC WONDER (mortality data based on death certificates for US residents) for the years 1999-2020 from 30 states and found stark racial inequities in homicide rates between Black and White women. In 2020, Black women aged 25-44 years had a homicide rate 3·9 times that of White women of the same age; inequities in homicide by firearm versus other injury methods followed a similar pattern, with Black women having 1·38 times the odds of being killed with a firearm than White women.

Further findings from Waller and colleagues showed that after favourable downtrends during 1999-2013, the homicide rate for Black women has steadily increased since 2013, but remained static for White women over the entire study period.

Language: en