Violent death rates in the US compared to those of the other high-income countries, 2015 (original) (raw)

Violence is a serious public health issue in the U.S. This research compares the US and other high-income countries in terms of violent death. We used data from the World Health Organization for populous, high-income countries. Data from CDC's WISQARS and WONDER systems were used to assess mortality data among US white and non-white populations and in low-, medium-, and high-gun states in 2015. Death rates per 100,000 population were calculated overall, by age, and by sex. Poisson and negative binomial regression were used to test for significance. The homicide rate in the US was 7.5 times higher than the homicide rate in the other high-income countries combined, which was largely attributable to a firearm homicide rate that was 24.9 times higher. The overall firearm death rate was 11.4 times higher in the US than in other high-income countries. In this dataset, 83.7% of all firearm deaths, 91.6% of women killed by guns, and 96.7% of all children aged 0-4 years killed by guns were from the US.