Black women in the US murdered six times more often than White women over last 20 years

Black women in the U.S were, on average, six times more likely to be murdered than their white peers for the years 1999 through 2020, according to an analysis of racial disparities in U.S. homicide rates released by Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.

Alarming Rising Trends in Suicide by Firearms in Young Americans

Researchers explored suicide trends by firearms in white and black Americans ages 5 to 24 years from 1999 to 2018. From 2008 to 2018, rates of suicide by firearms quadrupled in those ages 5 to 14 years and increased by 50 percent in those ages 15 to 24 years. Suicide deaths by firearms were more prevalent in white than black Americans – a marked contrast with homicide by firearms, which are far more prevalent in black than white Americans.

Political TV Ads Referencing Guns Increased Eightfold Over Four Election Cycles

The number of political candidate television advertisements that refer to guns increased significantly across four election cycles in U.S. media markets, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The study, to be published in the February issue of Health Affairs, analyzed more than 14 million televised campaign advertisements that aired for candidates running for president, U.S. Congress, governor, and state legislatures in 210 U.S. media markets over four election cycles in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018. The researchers found that the number of political ads aired that referenced guns increased by 369,600, an eightfold increase from one percent of candidate-related television political ads aired in 2012 to 8 percent in 2018.

Among the televised political ads aired that referenced guns, the share with gun regulation-oriented messages that were focused on reducing gun violence increased almost threefold over time–from 10 perce