Black women in the United States were murdered six times more often than white women between 1999 and 2020, state-level analysis shows

Black women in the United States were on average six times more likely to be murdered than their white counterparts over the past 20 years, according to a new analysis published in The Lancet.

The study is the first to analyze homicide trends over two decades among women ages 25 to 44, the age when women are most likely to be murdered. It also indicates that black women are more likely than white women to be killed by guns.

It is well known that homicide rates among black women in the United States are disproportionately high compared to white women and that black women tend to be murdered at younger ages and at higher rates than others. women of color in the United States, including American Indian and Alaska Native women. women. Despite this, data on disparities remains limited.

“As a researcher whose research focuses on domestic violence, I have long known that there are disparities in homicide rates between black and white women.”

“Discovering the fact that black women are murdered at a rate of up to 20 to 1 in some states is heartbreaking and highlights the urgent need to make substantial structural changes,” said Dr. Bernadine Waller, lead author of the paper. article and researcher. Postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center with a dual appointment at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

Recent data suggests that there is a strong link between higher homicide rates and the effects of deep-rooted racial inequities, which manifest through factors such as educational attainment, unemployment, and wealth distribution. wealth, across the United States. This suggests that measures to reduce structural racism in the United States could help prevent high rates of homicide among black women.

Understanding how disparities in homicide rates change over time at state and regional levels can help identify areas where intervention is most needed.

To address this knowledge gap, the authors used CDC WONDER public health data to conduct a cross-sectional analysis of homicide mortality rates among Black and White women in the United States between 1999 and 2020. The analysis s is focused on women aged 25 to 44. in the 30 states where there are enough homicides (more than nine per year) to be analyzed.

The results were produced for five periods: 1999-2003, 2004-2008, 2009-2013, 2014-2018 and 2019-2020. The method of homicide was analyzed for four regions of the United States: South, Midwest, West, and Northeast.

The results indicate that black women in the United States overall had higher homicide rates than white women between 1999 and 2020. The overall homicide rate among black women in 2020 was 11.6 per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 3 per 100,000 among white women.

That figure remained virtually unchanged from 1999, when the rate among black women was 11.6 per 100,000, compared to 2.9 per 100,000 among white women. While disparities in homicide rates decreased between 1999 and 2013 – due to a decrease in homicide rates among black women – they increased from 2013 to 2020. At the state level, there are also differences in how disparities in homicide rates have decreased or increased between 1999 and 2020.

Homicide rates among black women were higher than among their white peers during all time periods and in every state analyzed. Overall, the greatest disparities were in the Midwest, where Black women in 2020 were seven times more likely to be murdered than white women. The greatest inequalities in homicide rates occurred in Wisconsin in 2019-20, when Black women were 20 times more likely to be murdered than white women.

Notably, the states with the greatest disparities in homicide rates were in areas of the country where a high proportion of people of low socioeconomic status lived in close proximity to each other. These areas also tend to have histories of slavery and lynching and are places where particularly tense Black Lives Matter protests took place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, many underlying factors are also involved, such as gender (men are more often responsible for domestic violence and shootings), but these were not investigated in the study.

“Our findings indicate that the greatest inequalities are found in regions of the country where disadvantage is concentrated. It is therefore imperative to focus on the lasting legacy of historic structural racism in the United States.”

“Efforts to reduce the disproportionate number of homicide deaths among Black women can be implemented by addressing the role of structural racism when it comes to policies and practices that increase the risk for Black women and reduce their access to much-needed resources,” said Victoria A. Joseph. , co-author of the article and data analyst at the Mailman School of Public Health Epidemiology, Columbia University.

Gun deaths among black and white women in the United States have increased, with women in general more than twice as likely (2.44 odds) to be killed by firearm in 2019-2020 by compared to 1999-2003. However, black women were more likely than white women to be killed by a gun (odds of 1.38).

The odds of gun death for black women have increased over time compared to white women. In 2020, Black women in the Northeast were three times more likely than white women (3.30 odds) to be killed by a gun, while gun homicides among Black women in the Midwest were more than seven times higher (score of 7.22) than among black women in the Midwest. White women.

In the South, black women were about one and a half times (odds of 1.51) more likely to be killed by a gun. The Western sample size was too small to include in this part of the analysis.

“Available data indicates that homicides in the United States have continued to increase in many parts of the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has also been accompanied by widespread national protests following the killing of George Floyd.”

“These trends reflect systems that have long served communities of color and highlight that sustained investment and vision to support underserved communities is essential to reversing racial injustices that impact health and well-being” , said Katherine Keyes, lead author of the article and professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.

The authors acknowledge certain limitations to their study. Data was not available for all 50 U.S. states because the number of homicides in some states was too low to analyze. The results therefore apply only to the States analyzed. Homicides reportedly increased significantly between 2019 and 2020, particularly among black populations.

However, the study may underestimate current disparities in homicide rates because data from 2019 and 2020 were combined for reporting purposes. Data from previous studies indicate that violence caused by a current or former partner, particularly against women, increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, but data beyond 2020 was not available In this study.

Black women are a diverse group, including African American, African, Afro-Caribbean, Black Hispanic, and Black European women, but reporting methods have not been able to analyze disparities within subgroups.

In a related commentary, Rebecca F Wilson and Janet M Blair of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who were not involved in the study, said: “All homicides, including those of women, are avoidable. of Waller and colleagues’ study provide the visibility needed to address the public health crisis of female homicide and the homicide inequities experienced by Black women.

They emphasize the importance of enacting state-level legislation to address disparities in homicide rates among black women, saying, “These legislative efforts offer a glimmer of hope that the disproportionate homicides of women Black women will be treated as a crisis of epidemic proportions alongside the already recognized epidemic of homicides among black men and boys.