Significantly reduced rates of interpersonal violence in an urban Danish population 2003–2021

Abstract

This study aimed to describe changes in annual incidence rates and the severity of deliberate interpersonal violence based on hospital and forensic data in a Danish urban population 2003–2021. Included in the study were local victims of violence admitted to Odense University Hospital and/or subjected to medico-legal autopsy at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Southern Denmark from 2003 to 2021. Based on population counts, we estimated overall and gender specific annual incidence rates in different age groups. For the 14,788 victims included in the study, the gender-specific incidence rates were 5.7 for males and 2.4 for females per 1000 population/year. The incidence rates decreased almost fourfold for both genders in all age groups. In both gender, the incidence rate of violence involving mild injuries decreased significantly, whereas incidence rate of violence involving severe injuries remained unchanged over the study period. The proportion of superficial lesions decreased and the proportion of wounds, bone fractures, and deep lesions increased. The proportion of victims with injuries from knifes increased from 3.0 to 5.4% in the study period. Overall, 0.3% died from their injuries. The present study showed a significant decreased in the incidence rate of violence based on hospital and forensic data. The decrease involved solely victims with less severe injuries. We recommend studies combining hospital, forensic, and police data.