Social Work Today E-Zine

Gun-related homicide among young men rose sharply in the United States in recent years even though the nation’s overall homicide rate remained flat, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Between 1999 and 2005, homicide involving firearms increased 31% among black males aged 25 to 44 and 12% among white males of the same age. The study is published online in the Journal of Urban Health.

“The recent flatness of the U.S. homicide rate obscures the large increases in firearm death among males ages 25 to 44, especially black males,” says Susan Baker, MPH, coauthor of the study and a professor with the Bloomberg School’s Center for Injury Research and Policy.

For the study, Baker and her colleagues analyzed data from the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, which includes information on injury-related deaths and mortality rates per 100,000 population from 1981 to 2005. Mortality data by urbanization level was obtained through the Wonder System at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to the study, the overall homicide rate remained between 6.0 and 6.1 deaths per 100,000 from 1999 to 2005, except for an increase in 2001 attributed to the terrorist attacks of September 11. The researchers found significant increases in the rate of firearm homicide for white males aged 25 to 34 and for black males aged 25 to 44.

The increase in firearm homicide for males aged 25 to 44 was not distributed evenly throughout the country. The most significant increases occurred in Alabama, California, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. The other states did not see significant change. Additionally, most of the increases occurred in and around large metropolitan areas.

— Source: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health