worsened the violence among Black women, many of whom were essential workers and had to leave their homes for work.
“The pandemic disrupted our daily lives abruptly and to an unprecedented extent, causing changes in everything from physical activity to patterns of socialization, which have then had physiological as well as emotional/psychological effects,” Dr. Timothy Sullivan, chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Staten Island University Hospital says.
As people lost jobs, financial strains came to the fore, too.
“The economic consequences of the pandemic greatly increased strain on families, but disproportionately, so that suffering, while widespread, was especially great for some,” Sullivan adds. He also points to statistics showing a rise in substance abuse and a steady rise in incidents of domestic violence over the past 18 months.
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“This volatile combination of emotional, financial and physical stress, combined with substance use and the too-ready availability of handguns in our society — which has been shown to increase the likelihood of shooting deaths associated with intimate partner violence — could understandably lead to an increased homicide rate,” Sullivan believes.
The new figures didn’t come as a surprise to one emergency medicine doctor.
“Emergency physicians are continuing to follow an increasingly worrisome upward trend in violence in the United States over the past year,” Dr. Teresa Murray Amato shares.
“It is unclear what impact the pandemic has had on these trends and more research will need to be done to better understand why this is happening,” according to Amato, who directs emergency medicine at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills, in New York City.
The NCHS findings on the sharp rise in homicide rates between 2019 and 2020 are consistent with