摘要：Objectives. We evaluated the contribution of neighborhood-level factors indicative of social disorganization, including educational and occupational attainment, immigrant concentration, physical disorder, and social cohesion, to the likelihood of intimate partner femicide (IPF) while taking into account known neighborhood- and individual-level IPF risk factors. Methods. We used medical examiner data on 1861 femicide victims between 1990 and 1999 and archival information on 59 neighborhoods in New York City to conduct a multilevel case–control analysis. Results. After controlling for neighborhood-level income, we found that no neighborhood factors were significantly associated with IPF risk, as compared with risk of non–IPF and risk of femicide from unknown perpetrators, above and beyond the contributions of individual-level factors. The strongest predictors of IPF were foreign country of birth and young age. Conclusions. IPF victims were nearly twice as likely as non-IPF victims to be foreign born; by contrast, there was little neighborhood-level heterogeneity with respect to IPF risk. Further research is needed to identify neighborhood characteristics that uniquely influence risk of IPF to guide community-level interventions. Homicide was the second leading cause of death among women aged 20 to 24 years of age in the United States in 2002. 1 When women are killed, their intimate partners are often responsible; approximately one third of all female victims are killed by intimate partners. 2 , 3 Intimate partner homicide of women (hereafter referred to as intimate partner femicide, or [IPF]) often occurs in the prime of life and at a time when a woman’s familial and social responsibilities are at her peak. IPF is most likely to occur in the home 2 and is often witnessed by children. 4 Key victim-level risk factors include race, socioeconomic status, and foreign country of birth. 2 , 5 , 6 Although research in this area is growing, the role of the neighborhood environment in shaping IPF risk is not well understood. Framed within social disorganization theory, recent empirical studies of both lethal and nonlethal violence have shown that key neighborhood characteristics, such as poverty, ethnic heterogeneity, and collective efficacy, are highly predictive of homicide and violence risk. 7 – 9 Social disorganization theory proposes that reciprocal social interactions cocreate local moral orders by determining the behaviors that are considered deviant and facilitating the social interactions that restrict such behaviors. The effects of macrolevel processes such as industrialization, urbanization, and immigration alter a neighborhood’s social structure and weaken its cohesiveness. 10 Operationalized as concentrated poverty, ethnic heterogeneity, and residential mobility, these changes to the social structure adversely influence a neighborhood’s interconnectedness or social cohesion. Social cohesion is a key component of collective efficacy or the ability of a community to informally control violence and other social and health problems. 11 Public health researchers are increasingly applying social disorganization and collective efficacy theories to the study of violence 7 and other health 12 outcomes. Studies applying a social disorganization theoretical framework to intimate partner violence against women have produced mixed results; most ecological analyses suggest that neighborhood factors are less important to models focusing on rates of intimate partner violence than to models focusing on rates of non–intimate partner violence. 13 , 14 In multilevel models comparing women who have and have not experienced intimate partner violence, findings have generally revealed a negative influence of neighborhood poverty but not of other neighborhood-level factors indicative of social disorganization, such as residential stability and ethnic heterogeneity. 15 – 19 The results of a pair of studies showed that neighborhood collective efficacy reduced risk of intimate partner violence at the individual level, 15 , 20 whereas another study’s findings revealed no effect of collective efficacy or other related neighborhood-level factors on a range of partner violence outcomes (e.g., leaving a relationship, being subsequently victimized). 21 We examined whether neighborhood characteristics indicative of social disorganization were related to IPF risk, as compared with non-IPF risk and risk of femicide on the part of an unknown perpetrator, after controlling for individual-level factors found in previous research to be associated with IPF. 2
