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A population-based study of homicide deaths in Ontario, Canada using linked death records
BACKGROUND: Homicide – a lethal expression of violence – has garnered little attention from public health researchers and health policy makers, despite the fact that homicides are a cause of preventable and premature death. Identifying populations at risk and the upstream determinants of homicide ar...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5525348/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28738872 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-017-0632-9 |
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author | Lachaud, James Donnelly, Peter D. Henry, David Kornas, Kathy Calzavara, Andrew Bornbaum, Catherine Rosella, Laura |
author_facet | Lachaud, James Donnelly, Peter D. Henry, David Kornas, Kathy Calzavara, Andrew Bornbaum, Catherine Rosella, Laura |
author_sort | Lachaud, James |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Homicide – a lethal expression of violence – has garnered little attention from public health researchers and health policy makers, despite the fact that homicides are a cause of preventable and premature death. Identifying populations at risk and the upstream determinants of homicide are important for addressing inequalities that hinder population health. This population-based study investigates the public health significance of homicides in Ontario, Canada, over the period of 1999–2012. We quantified the relative burden of homicides by comparing the socioeconomic gradient in homicides with the leading causes of death, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and neoplasm, and estimated the potential years of life lost (PYLL) due to homicide. METHODS: We linked vital statistics from the Office of the Registrar General Deaths register (ORG-D) with Census and administrative data for all Ontario residents. We extracted all homicide, neoplasm, and cardiovascular deaths from 1999 to 2012, using International Classification of Diseases codes. For socioeconomic status (SES), we used two dimensions of the Ontario Marginalization Index (ON-Marg): material deprivation and residential instability. Trends were summarized across deprivation indices using age-specific rates, rate ratios, and PYLL. RESULTS: Young males, 15–29 years old, were the main victims of homicide with a rate of 3.85 [IC 95%: 3.56; 4.13] per 100,000 population and experienced an upward trend over the study period. The socioeconomic neighbourhood gradient was substantial and higher than the gradient for both cardiovascular and neoplasms. Finally, the PYLL due to homicide were 63,512 and 24,066 years for males and females, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Homicides are an important cause of death among young males, and populations living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Our findings raise concerns about the burden of homicides in the Canadian population and the importance of addressing social determinants to address these premature deaths. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12939-017-0632-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5525348 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-55253482017-07-26 A population-based study of homicide deaths in Ontario, Canada using linked death records Lachaud, James Donnelly, Peter D. Henry, David Kornas, Kathy Calzavara, Andrew Bornbaum, Catherine Rosella, Laura Int J Equity Health Research BACKGROUND: Homicide – a lethal expression of violence – has garnered little attention from public health researchers and health policy makers, despite the fact that homicides are a cause of preventable and premature death. Identifying populations at risk and the upstream determinants of homicide are important for addressing inequalities that hinder population health. This population-based study investigates the public health significance of homicides in Ontario, Canada, over the period of 1999–2012. We quantified the relative burden of homicides by comparing the socioeconomic gradient in homicides with the leading causes of death, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and neoplasm, and estimated the potential years of life lost (PYLL) due to homicide. METHODS: We linked vital statistics from the Office of the Registrar General Deaths register (ORG-D) with Census and administrative data for all Ontario residents. We extracted all homicide, neoplasm, and cardiovascular deaths from 1999 to 2012, using International Classification of Diseases codes. For socioeconomic status (SES), we used two dimensions of the Ontario Marginalization Index (ON-Marg): material deprivation and residential instability. Trends were summarized across deprivation indices using age-specific rates, rate ratios, and PYLL. RESULTS: Young males, 15–29 years old, were the main victims of homicide with a rate of 3.85 [IC 95%: 3.56; 4.13] per 100,000 population and experienced an upward trend over the study period. The socioeconomic neighbourhood gradient was substantial and higher than the gradient for both cardiovascular and neoplasms. Finally, the PYLL due to homicide were 63,512 and 24,066 years for males and females, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Homicides are an important cause of death among young males, and populations living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Our findings raise concerns about the burden of homicides in the Canadian population and the importance of addressing social determinants to address these premature deaths. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12939-017-0632-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-07-24 /pmc/articles/PMC5525348/ /pubmed/28738872 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-017-0632-9 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Lachaud, James Donnelly, Peter D. Henry, David Kornas, Kathy Calzavara, Andrew Bornbaum, Catherine Rosella, Laura A population-based study of homicide deaths in Ontario, Canada using linked death records |
title | A population-based study of homicide deaths in Ontario, Canada using linked death records |
title_full | A population-based study of homicide deaths in Ontario, Canada using linked death records |
title_fullStr | A population-based study of homicide deaths in Ontario, Canada using linked death records |
title_full_unstemmed | A population-based study of homicide deaths in Ontario, Canada using linked death records |
title_short | A population-based study of homicide deaths in Ontario, Canada using linked death records |
title_sort | population-based study of homicide deaths in ontario, canada using linked death records |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5525348/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28738872 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12939-017-0632-9 |
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