Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Vol. 50, No. SS-3, October 12, 2001. CDC Surveillance Summaries. Surveillance for Homicide Among Intimate Partners, United States, 1981-1998.

摘要

Homicide is among the six leading causes of death for persons aged 1-44 years and accounts for approximately 18,000 deaths annually in the United States. The majority of homicides are committed by persons known to the victim. Approximately one in three homicides of females is committed by current or former spouses or boyfriends, a group collectively referred to as intimate partners. Among male homicide victims, 5% are killed by intimate partners. Unlike other causes of death, intimate partner homicides (IPHs) cannot be described by using death certificate information, because death certificates do not record the victim's relationship to the perpetrator(s). The only nationwide information regarding IPHs comes from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Supplemental Homicide Reports (SHRs) database. The SHR database contains reports completed by police departments throughout the United States. Submission of crime data to the FBI is voluntary, and the system does not capture all homicides. However, the true number of homicides can be estimated by comparing FBI homicide counts with homicide counts from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). This report uses FBI SHR data, adjusted by comparison with NCHS data, to describe the risk for IPH by demographic variables (e.g., race, sex, age, year, month, state, and community population size) during 1981-1998.