Abstract
Background: Violence has important health effects. The results of exposure to physical violence include, but may not be limited to, death from suicide and homicide. The connection between the experience of assault and risk of death from causes other than homicide and suicide has rarely been examined. Methods: We analysed data from the first Izhevsk Family Study (IFS-1), a population-based case–control study of premature mortality in Russian men. Structural equation models were used to obtain odds ratios (ORs) for the association between the proxy report of physical attack in the previous year and mortality. Results: The estimate of the all-cause mortality OR for assault, after adjusting for alcohol use and socio-demographic confounders, was 1.96 (95% confidence interval: 1.71, 3.31). Strong cause-specific associations were found for external causes, but associations were also found for deaths from cardiovascular and alcohol-related deaths. Conclusions: We found that, in our population of working-aged Russian men, there was a strong association between physical assault and mortality from a wide range of causes. Other than direct effects of physical assault on mortality, residual confounding is an important possibility. The association between assault and mortality, particularly from cardiovascular and alcohol-related causes requires replication and further investigation.
Highlights
Violence disproportionately affects the vulnerable and has universal ethical, legal, economic and health consequences.[1]
We found that, in our population of working-aged Russian men, there was a strong association between physical assault and mortality from a wide range of causes
In our population of working-aged Russian men, there was a strong association between physical assault and mortality from a wide range of causes
Summary
Violence disproportionately affects the vulnerable and has universal ethical, legal, economic and health consequences.[1] In 2010, WHO estimated there were 468,000 homicides worldwide.[2] Violent causes rank seventeenth among the 30 most prevalent causes of death, and affect males and females in a ratio of roughly 2:1.3 Non-lethal violence data are sparser, derived in different ways by country, and may be unreliable. Estimates for such violence have focused on particular contexts: 10–69% of women report intimate partner violence; 20% of women and 5–10% of men report experience of childhood sexual abuse; and 4–6% of older people report violence.[4]. The association between assault and mortality, from cardiovascular and alcohol-related causes requires replication and further investigation
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