When Domestic Violence Turns Deadly

Study finds unemployment, access to guns and threats to kill major predictors of trouble

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FRIDAY, July 11, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- Unemployment, access to guns and threats to kill are the strongest predictors of the murder of women who are in abusive relationships.

A nationwide study in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health concludes that a combination of factors, rather than a single one, increases the probability that a women will be murdered by her partner.

Researchers identified and interviewed family members and acquaintances of 220 women in 11 U.S. cities who were killed by their partners. The researchers also interviewed 343 women who reported physical abuse during the previous two years.

The study found unemployment is the single strongest social risk factor, resulting in a fourfold increased risk that a women will be killed by her partner. That risk increases to more than fivefold if the abuser has access to a firearm.

Threats to kill and threats with a weapon were also strongly associated with murder after taking the other factors into account.

The presence of a stepchild of an abuser in the home, an abuser's highly controlling behavior, and separation were the most common independent relationship factors that increased risk of a woman being murdered by her partner.

The combination of separation and controlling behavior increased the risk of murder by more than fivefold.

"Such information can be useful in preventing these killings," principal investigator Jacquelyn Campbell, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, says in a news release.

"In the United States, women are killed by intimate partners more often than by any other type of perpetrator, with the majority of these murders involving prior physical abuse. Determining key risk factors, over and above a history of domestic violence, that contribute to the abuse that escalates to murder will help us identify and intervene with battered women who are most at risk," Campbell says.

More information

Here's where you can learn more about domestic violence.

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