Homicide and Public Health
Deaths due to homicide are de-facto preventable and premature, but are not always framed this way. However, by discovering the upstream determinants and identifying the groups most at risk, we may come to better understand homicide as a phenomenon, which is an important step in tackling the varied inequalities that stymie the improvement of population health.
In their recent paper, Drs. Laura Rosella and Peter Donnelly, alongside Population Health Analytic’s Catherine Bornbaum, Kathy Kornas, and former postdoc James Lachaud, investigated the public health significance of homicide in Ontario, Canada between the years 1999 and 2012.
To determine the relative burden of homicide, the authors compared the socioeconomic gradient in homicides with the leading causes of death, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. This allowed them to assess the impact of socioeconomic position on mortality rates and potential years of life lost.
The authors accomplished this by linking vital statistics data from the Office of the Registrar General Deaths register with Census and administrative data for all Ontario residents.
Findings
The findings were clear: most homicide victims were 15-29 year-old males, a stat that saw a slight upward trend over the study period. Additionally, the socioeconomic neighbourhood gradient proved itself higher and more substantial than the cardiovascular and cancer gradients.
This team argues that homicides not only elucidate health inequalities (as homicides disproportionately affect young males and those living in poorer neighbourhoods in Ontario), but that homicide rates provide a looking glass for investigating broader population health inequities.
An effort to avert homicidal death in poor Ontarian neighbourhoods is an effort to promote health. The authors suggest that by analyzing the social determinants of homicide, the premature deaths caused by homicides may be more adequately addressed.
Full paper available here: A population-based study of…