12.0 Percent of Child Firearm Homicides Are Related to Intimate Partner Violence

MONDAY, Nov. 6, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Among intimate partner violence (IPV)-related child firearm homicides, 86.0 percent are child corollary victims, according to a study published online Nov. 6 in Pediatrics.

Rebecca F. Wilson, Ph.D., from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and colleagues used data from the CDC National Violent Death Reporting System for 2003 to 2020 to examine associations between various characteristics and IPV among child firearm homicides.

A total of 11,594 child homicides were captured from 2003 to 2020, and of these, 49.3 percent were firearm homicides. Overall, 12.0 percent of child firearm homicides were IPV-related. The researchers found that 86.0 and 14.0 percent of IPV-related child firearm homicides were child corollary victims (i.e., death was connected to IPV between others) and teens killed by a current or former dating partner, respectively. When precipitated by conflict, crises, and co-occurring with the perpetrator”s suicide, child firearm homicides had greater odds of involving IPV compared with those without these characteristics. Of IPV-related firearm homicides of child corollary victims, more than half included homicides of the adult intimate partner, 94.1 percent of which involved the child victim”s mother. Child firearm homicides had greater odds of involving IPV when perpetrated by mothers” male companions and the children”s father compared with those perpetrated by mothers (adjusted odds ratios, 6.9 and 4.5, respectively).

“It is important to consider results from this study in combination with findings that emerge from studies on adult intimate partner homicide,” the authors write.

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