Income Inequality and Pregnancy-Associated Homicide in the US: A Longitudinal, State-Level Analysis

• Published in: Violence against women Vol. 29; no. 9; pp. 1567 - 1581
• Main Authors: Dyer, Lauren, Vilda, Dovile, Harville, Emily, Theall, Katherine, Wallace, Maeve
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-07-2023; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Births; Female; Homicide; Humans; Income; Income inequality; Linear analysis; Low income groups; Murders & murder attempts; Poverty; Pregnancy; United States - epidemiology; Violent death; United States; maternal health; health disparities; income inequality; pregnancy-associated homicide
• ISSN: 1077-8012; 1552-8448
• DOI: 10.1177/10778012221120446

Pregnancy-associated homicide remains an understudied yet critical issue. Using restricted use mortality files provided by the National Center for Health Statistics and the National Violent Death Reporting System, annual state-level pregnancy-associated homicide ratios were estimated as the count of deaths divided by the number of live births. The exposure, the state Gini index, was categorized into tertiles to compare states by levels of income inequality. In the final adjusted longitudinal linear model, those who experienced the greatest amount of income inequality had a significant 1.28 per 100,000 homicide rate when compared to the lowest income inequality tertile.