World report on violence and health

In 2002, the World Health Organization published its World report on violence and health in which it collated statistics from around the world on serious violent crimes, the first time that such a comprehensive exercise has been carried out.

In particular, the report looked at deaths caused by violence and goes into some detail on the different types of violence and the people committing such crimes. For example, violence caused by intimate partners, child abuse, and sexual violence are each covered in the various chapters.

The report itself is lengthy and detailed and has some interesting statistics amongst its many tables of figures. These are not the sorts of figures that are likely to be reported by American conservative organizations, as they make uncomfortable reading for anyone advocating gun ownership.

Death by intentional injury
Of the 77 countries for which statistics were taken for death by intentional injury, the US was 29th, with 17.4 deaths per 100,000 of the population. This is considerably short of Colombia (65.1 deaths per 100,000), Russia (53.7), Cuba (23.5), but poor in comparison to the UK (7.6), Israel (7.3) and Greece (4.3)

Death by homicide
Death by homicide figures are somewhat less charitable to the US: of the 71 countries for which statistics were taken for death by homicide, the US was 27th, with 6.9 deaths per 100,000 of the population, putting it in the vicinity of such exalted company as Thailand, Guyana, Cuba and Costa Rica, although far short of Colombia's 61.6 deaths per 100,000. By contrast, Western European countries featured much lower down the list, such as Poland (2.7 per 100,000), Belgium (1.6), Italy (1.1) and the UK (0.8)

Death by firearm
Anyone against gun control in the US should look away now. The US is second in national rates of deaths by firearm, with 11.3 deaths per 100,000 in total. Of these, 6.4 per 100,000 were using their gun to check themselves out, with 4.4 using a gun to kill somebody else. Only Albania was higher, with a homicide rate of 17.6 per 100,000. Most of Western Europe is below 1 per 100,000, including the UK, with a homicide-by-firearm rate of only 0.1. Some would suggest that this is related to the number of guns per capita and is expected, but they are probably looking away right now anyway.