Work by a team of researchers from MAC and partner organizations was one of 12 posters selected from a field of over 400 to win "Best Poster" at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Epidemiologic Research. The poster, entitled “Homicide of pregnant and postpartum women in the United States, 2018-2019” describes a recent analysis lead by MAC faculty Dr. Maeve Wallace along with MAC faculty Dr. Dovile Vilda, doctoral student Kiara Cruz, and partners Kelly Davis from the National Birth Equity Collaborative and Dr. Veronica Gillispie-Bell from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Ochsner Baptist Medical Center.
The team analyzed every death certificate issued in the United States from 2018-2019 to identify cases of homicide that were persons who were pregnant or within 1 year from the end of pregnancy at the time of their death. They found that the homicide mortality rate in this population (3.6 deaths per 100,000 live births) exceeded each of the leading causes of maternal mortality (hemorrhage, hypertensive disorders, and infections) by more than 3-fold. It was also 16% higher than the rate of homicide of non-pregnant or postpartum women of reproductive age during the same time period, suggesting that pregnancy may increase women’s risk of experiencing fatal violence.
Ongoing work by Dr. Wallace and her team seeks to identify solutions to the problem of maternal homicide. Given that the majority of cases involve guns, state laws that regulate access to firearms by persons involved in domestic violence may be an effective policy intervention to prevent fatal firearm violence against pregnant and postpartum women. The team’s evaluation of state firearm laws and their impact on and rates of homicide in this population is forthcoming.
