National Violent Death Reporting System New Investigator Award

Adolescent intimate partner violence (IPV) is an understudied and underreported public health concern, with the severest form resulting in death. The proposal seeks to describe the characteristics and circumstances of fatal IPV among adolescents (15-19 year olds), and quantify differences among adolescent victims (suicide-only, homicide-only, homicidesuicide, and corollary) over a five-year span. IPV-related death definitions will be guided by the IPV incident variable and criteria prescribed by CDC's IPV Surveillance: Uniform Definitions and Recommended Data Elements (2.0) and relevant literature. Victims will be identified by death manner (suicide, homicide), only among cases with confirmed causes. Annual trends and descriptive statistics will be calculated overall for IPV decedents. Suicide and homicide victims will be examined separately. Homicides will be subdivided by homicide-only, homicide-suicide, and corollary groupings and analyzed. Corollary victims are defined by Smith et al.'s (2014) NVDRS analysis. Decedents will be characterized by demographics (e.g., gender, race, sexual orientation), cause, mechanism (e.g., gun, knife, poison with toxicology results), and circumstances. Circumstances may include mental health and health (e.g., current depressed mood, current mental health problem, current mental health treatment, ever-received mental health treatment, health problem/disability), suicide (e.g., history of attempts, ideation), prior violence in past month, related crises, and contributing details. Significance testing (chi-square and Fisher exact) will examine victim group differences. The proposal seeks to document the adolescent fatal IPV burden, thereby informing public health of the extent and circumstances of adolescent fatal IPV in order to prevent and intervene in IPV relationships before they escalate into violent deaths.